Plico Virtual Power Plant

When you join Plico, you join our innovative Virtual Power Plant (VPP). You’ll be supporting the grid and accelerating Australia's transition to a clean energy future. Once the VPP is up and running in Victoria, you will earn financial rewards just for being part of it. 

With the Plico VPP, you're part of a community of clean energy change-makers!  

Our VPP was the first of its kind in Western Australia, and its’s growing rapidly. We now have almost 2000 households signed up – that’s over 19 MWh in battery storage. Our community of clean energy systems acts like one mini power plant, providing essential services to the grid when required. And just like any other energy provider, you will get paid for providing these services.  

What is a Virtual Power Plant?

A Virtual Power Plant (VPP) is a network of distributed energy resources (DER), in our case household solar + battery, solar and/or battery systems, that is managed remotely to generate, store and transfer energy to and from the grid. VPPs can increase or decrease energy supply to the grid almost instantly, providing a flexible, cost-effective and clean energy solution to the support the grid.  

How can a VPP support the grid?

VPPs can be managed to bring the grid back into balance under both minimum demand and peak demand scenarios. When there is minimum demand, energy supply to the grid is high and energy demand on the grid is low. This can occur in the middle of mild sunny days when solar exports to the grid are high but there is low demand from homes, business and industry. Peak demand is when the oppositive occurs; energy supply to the grid is low and demand is high. This usually occurs on hot summer evenings when energy demand increases just as solar exports start to decrease.   

Both minimum demand and peak demand create a high degree of fluctuation between supply and demand at varying times in a given day, and both scenarios can cause serious issues for maintaining grid stability. The good news is that a VPP can help smooth out these fluctuations by managing supply and demand. VPPs can also help manage grid voltage and frequency, providing a low-cost clean energy solution that benefits all users of the grid. 

The table and diagrams below explain the key differences between minimum demand and peak demand, and what Plico members can do to help.   

See how much our members save!