Virtual power plant (VPP) capacity in California could potentially exceed more than 7,500 MW by 2035, according to new research released by The Brattle Group and GridLab. That’s more capacity than the largest physical power plant in the state and higher than the peak demand of the city of Los Angeles.

The Brattle Group also found that by 2035 VPPs will have the potential to save consumers more than $550 million each year, avoid more than $750 million annually in traditional power system costs, ease current energy challenges, improve grid reliability and advance the state’s efforts to create a sustainable and reliable energy system.

VPPs use an intelligent control system and bidirectional technology to aggregate energy from networked resources located at multiple sites, such as solar plus storage systems, electric vehicles (EVs) and other distributed energy resources (DERs). The technology creates a reliable power network by bundling together what could be hundreds of discrete power sources into one that can be dispatched during times of peak demand, just as a centralized power plant would.