Israel-based SolarEdge Technologies, Inc., a provider of intelligent inverter systems, is launching an innovative solution for grid services and virtual power plants to support a shared energy economy. SolarEdge’s grid services offer aggregative control and data reporting enabling the pooling of photovoltaic (PV) and storage in the cloud for the creation of virtual power plants. Offering benefits to all stakeholders, the solution will provide utilities with the tools to leverage distributed energy generation systems to more efficiently meet demand. Energy retailers will enjoy protection from price peaks and PV system owners can increase their revenue from joining this new energy economy.

With the increasing proliferation of PV and storage around the world, the energy production industry is transitioning from a centralized system to a distributed network in which energy is produced closer to the location it is stored and consumed. This provides PV and storage system owners with a new revenue stream opportunity by selling their self-produced and stored energy. However, the new complex network of distributed generation requires sophisticated management platforms to provide real-time, aggregated control of the demand and supply of energy.

The software platform receives commands from the network operator and determines how to target a specific problem. Algorithms deconstruct the network’s request into simple commands and relays those commands to what could be many thousands of systems at once. This includes delivering grid services such as frequency regulation, which in many territories has a technical barrier to market entry that requires several megawatts of resources to be available.

As PV markets evolve from feed-in tariffs to net-metering and finally to self-consumption, the grid services will provide homeowners with the opportunity to maximize self-consumption and take advantage of time-of-use tariffs as a revenue stream.