Many sites in one project
Build every site in the VPP with its own loads and assets, and use Portfolio View to set up and edit sites and assets in one table. Compare results across all the sites.
Project types
Virtual power plant (VPP) modelling
Virtual power plants (VPPs) are distributed portfolios of energy resources, aggregated to provide wholesale energy market services by a VPP aggregator. Gridcog models every site in a VPP in one project, each with its own batteries, solar, EVs or flexible loads, grid connection and tariffs, and shows what the aggregator and each customer earn.
NESO's Future Energy Scenarios 2025 expect almost 50% of Great Britain's total system flexibility to come from residential and commercial consumers by 2050.
NESO's forecast for vehicle-to-grid flexibility in 2050 rose by 28% to 41 GW in the same report.
Energy Pool, a flexibility aggregator in the Netherlands, cut analysis that used to take weeks or months down to hours with Gridcog.
What is a virtual power plant?
A virtual power plant (VPP) is a portfolio of distributed energy resources, such as home and business batteries, rooftop solar, EVs and flexible loads, that an aggregator controls together to trade in energy markets. Each asset stays at its own site, behind its own meter, but the aggregator can offer their combined flexibility as if it were one larger plant.
How does a VPP earn money?
| Value stream | How it works | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Wholesale trading | The aggregator charges and discharges assets around price spreads, across day-ahead and intraday markets | In Great Britain, P415 lets an independent aggregator trade behind-the-meter assets separately from the site's supplier |
| Balancing and frequency services | Assets hold capacity ready to respond to the system operator | Energy Pool models its customers' assets in aFRR and FCR in the Netherlands |
| Capacity markets | Availability payments for capacity at times of system stress | Great Britain's Capacity Market |
| Network flexibility services | Distribution network operators pay assets to turn demand down at peaks | UK Power Networks' turn-down services |
| Customer savings | Each customer's bill falls as its assets cut peak demand and imports | Tariff arbitrage, self-consumption and demand charge management |
How does Gridcog model a virtual power plant?
As a multi-site project. Each site keeps its own loads, assets, grid connection, tariffs and market access, and Gridcog optimises each site's assets against that site's constraints and price signals. The commercial model then shows how the value is shared between the aggregator and each customer.
Market access for each site
Assign each site a market area covering the wholesale, ancillary service and capacity markets its assets can reach. In Great Britain, P415 arrangements are modelled with asset-level energy flows and an aggregator participant.
Aggregator and revenue sharing
Add the aggregator as a participant, then assign market income, fees and costs between the aggregator and its customers, including percentage splits. The same participants and value flows apply across every site in a scenario, so test different commercial terms as separate scenarios.
Every kind of distributed asset
Model home and business batteries, rooftop solar, smart and bi-directional EV charging, heat pumps and other flexible loads, and generators, each with its own operating settings.
Customer outcomes
See each customer's bill savings and income next to the aggregator's revenue, so the offer works for both sides before you sign anyone up.
How much value can one asset create in a VPP?
It depends on the asset, the market and how many markets the asset can trade in. Two Gridcog models of single assets in Great Britain show the range.
| Asset | What was modelled | Value |
|---|---|---|
| 500 kWh / 250 kW battery at a supermarket in Maidstone | 2024 prices, bill savings only, against P415 access to three wholesale markets plus the Capacity Market and DNO flexibility | £7,152 a year on bills alone; £19,885 a year with P415 access, shared between the site and its aggregator |
| One V2G-enabled BYD Dolphin, in Gridcog's model of Octopus Energy's public V2G scheme | July 2024 to June 2025 prices, from day-ahead trading only up to balancing, capacity and frequency markets | £526 to £1,015 per vehicle per year for the supplier, depending on market exposure |
Building a VPP or flexibility offer?
Model your portfolio in GridcogWhich aggregators and distributed energy teams use Gridcog?
Flexibility services for business prosumers, the Netherlands
Energy Pool
Models how its customers' batteries, combined heat and power plants and flexible loads behind the meter can earn in balancing markets, such as aFRR and FCR, and wholesale markets.
‘Prior to becoming a Gridcog customer, preparing this analysis took our analysts weeks or even months as it requires a high degree of processing. Now we can perform this analysis in hours, which has been a huge accelerant to our business.’
Energy engineering consultancy, New Zealand
Revolve
For the Mangawhai Hills development of about 700 homes, each with around 10 kW of solar and a battery, the battery fleet is being designed for backup, arbitrage and peak shaving. Stacking its value reduced the grid connection size the design needs.
Who models VPPs in Gridcog?
Energy suppliers and aggregators, technology providers with fleets of batteries or chargers, and the consultants who advise them.
Energy modelling for energy majorsEnergy storage software for technology and solution providersEnergy modelling software for consultants
Frequently asked questions
A VPP is spread across many sites and connected through the market: an aggregator controls assets at separate homes and businesses and trades their combined flexibility. A microgrid is one smaller electrical grid operated as a single system, sometimes able to run islanded from the main grid. Gridcog models both. See microgrids.
Gridcog models a VPP as one multi-site project, but optimises each site's assets against that site's own constraints and price signals rather than as one pooled bid. That reflects what each customer's assets can do behind their own meter, and the project then shows results across all the sites and the aggregator's share of the value.
Any distributed asset that can change when it uses or exports electricity: home and business batteries, rooftop solar with storage, EVs with smart or bi-directional charging, heat pumps and other flexible loads, and on-site generators. Energy Pool's portfolio in the Netherlands, for example, includes batteries, combined heat and power plants in greenhouses and flexible loads.
Through an aggregator. Since 7 November 2024, P415 has let owners of behind-the-meter batteries, EV chargers, generators and heat pumps appoint an independent aggregator, a Virtual Trading Party, to trade their flexibility in wholesale markets, separately from their supplier. Aggregators can also reach the Balancing Mechanism, the Capacity Market and DNO flexibility services.
For each site: its load profile, assets and their settings, grid connection limits, supply contract and network tariffs. For the VPP: the markets the aggregator will trade, and the commercial terms between the aggregator and its customers. Portfolio View helps set up and edit many similar sites at once.
Request a live demo
Model your VPP in Gridcog
Request a demo and we'll show you how Gridcog models the sites, markets and revenue shares in your VPP.
The team behind Gridcog
Fabian Le Gay Brereton
Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder
Previously co-founded Greensense, acquired by ERM Power (now Shell Energy).
Pete Tickler
Chief Product Officer & Co-Founder
Co-founded Greensense and led digital innovation at ERM Power (now Shell Energy).
Genna Boyle
Chief Commercial Officer & Head of EMEA
More than 10 years in energy strategy, trading and renewables, with senior roles at Battery Optimiser and Limejump.
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