Nonprofit viable green economy solutions facilitation organisation GreenCape has called on virtual power plant (VPP) enterprises to apply to take part in its VPP Regulatory Sandbox Pilot project. This initiative is being run in partnership with global nonprofit VPP promotion group Integrate to Zero and transmission gird modernisation facilitation organisation Global Grids Catalyst, and in collaboration with the City of Cape Town (CoCT).

A VPP is formed through organising underutilised residential and commercial power sources into a coordinated system that supplies flexible and on-demand power to support the local grid. These power sources include rooftop solar installations, residential battery storage systems and smart devices.

“Around the world countries are setting targets for the contribution that VPPs and demand flex can make to cleaner, more affordable, electricity grids,” pointed out Integrate to Zero CEO Dan Hamza-Goodacre. “The technology is here but to unlock benefits the rules need to change to allow VPP and demand flex solutions to compete on a level playing field with historical ways of powering the grid.”

GreenCape and partners’ initiative will provide a controlled sandbox – that is, an isolated and safe environment – in which VPP use cases will be tested. This will operate within the CoCT’s distribution grid. The main focus will be on moving peak electricity into off-peak times. The project supports the CoCT 2050 Energy Strategy, which aims at a lower-cost, more reliable and lower carbon energy system.

“The City’s Energy Directorate has established itself as a progressive and innovative player in the energy transition, particularly as a leader in enabling distributed energy resources, with a strong uptake of rooftop solar and growing participation in our feed-in programme,” affirmed CoCT Energy MMC Xanthea Limberg. “Almost 2 000 small-scale embedded generation feed-in customers have received credits totalling near R9[-million] (incentives included) by exporting excess electricity to the grid. The [VPP] Regulatory Sandbox Pilot is a natural next step, helping us to explore how customer-owned energy resources such as solar, batteries and smart devices can work together to support a more resilient, affordable and efficient energy system. The lessons from this pilot will help inform future market frameworks and strengthen the city’s journey towards a future-fit, multi-player energy utility.”

The outcomes from the Sandbox will be shared with the CoCT and with any other interested municipalities. This will help them with the structuring of VPP frameworks, the contracting of third-party aggregators, and the designing of fair incentives for distributed energy sources.

The minimum number of participants in the sandbox will be one, and the maximum will be four. The first phase of the project foresees the onboarding of some 150 homes, to establish proof-of-concept value propositions, mainly by use of residential battery energy storage systems. The successful applicants will be able to receive incentive funding, divided into a primary pool (for shifting energy from peak to off-peak periods) and a secondary pool (for secondary use cases, including voltage control, instantaneous dispatching and ancillary services). The closing date for applications is November 15 this year. The panel of participants will be appointed on November 30. The setup and technical phase will occur in December and January. The active incentive run will start in February and run until September next year.