NRG and Renew Home to Create a 1 GW Virtual Power Plant in Texas That Will Help Enhance Grid Resilience and Reduce Household Energy Costs Leveraging Google Cloud Technology
HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 7, 2024-- NRG Energy Inc. (NYSE:NRG) today announced it is partnering with Renew Home, a leading virtual power plant (VPP) company to boost its residential VPP capabilities. Together, NRG and Renew Home aim to distribute hundreds of thousands of VPP-enabled smart thermostats by 2035 and create a nearly 1 GW AI-powered VPP – enabled by Google Cloud technology – to improve the Texas grid's resiliency and help households manage and lower their energy costs.
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Together, NRG and Renew Home aim to distribute hundreds of thousands of VPP-enabled smart thermostats by 2035 and create a nearly 1 GW AI-powered VPP – enabled by Google Cloud technology – to improve the Texas grid's resiliency and help households manage and lower their energy costs. (Graphic: Business Wire)
“This marks a pivotal step forward in our efforts to deliver more value and an enhanced experience to customers while empowering them with our virtual power plant capabilities,” said Rasesh Patel, President, NRG Consumer. “By partnering with industry leaders like Renew Home and Google Cloud, we are set to deliver cutting-edge, AI-driven solutions that will bolster grid resilience and contribute to a more sustainable future. We are excited about the transformative impact this collaboration will have on our customers and the broader energy landscape.”
Texas is experiencing a significant increase in peak energy demand due to population, load growth, and extreme weather, reaching an unprecedented demand surge of 85 GW in 2023. Residential VPPs have the potential to provide large, reliable energy resources to help meet these peak demand needs. They work by aggregating numerous, small-scale distributed energy resources like HVAC systems controlled by smart thermostats and home batteries and coordinating them to balance supply and demand. Equipping homes with these smart devices gives control to the end consumer and empowers them to not only make an impact and be part of the solution in Texas but also to save energy and money.
Building an AI-Enabled, 1 GW Virtual Power Plant in Texas
A 1 GW VPP delivers capacity equivalent to 200,000 homes during peak demand. To build the VPP, NRG, in partnership with Renew Home, plans to offer Vivint and Nest smart thermostats, including professional installation, at no cost to eligible customers across NRG’s retail electricity providers and plans. These advanced thermostats make subtle automatic HVAC adjustments to help customers shift their energy use to times when electricity is less constrained, less expensive, and cleaner. By combining smart devices, energy intelligence, and AI, this innovative program gives consumers comfort and control through a modern and efficient energy experience. Over time, the parties expect to add devices like batteries and electric vehicles to the VPP, expanding energy savings opportunities for customers.
“As rapid population growth and weather events create new challenges for meeting demand in ERCOT, VPPs can deliver a reliable, flexible and dispatchable energy resource,” said Ben Brown, Renew Home CEO. “NRG’s commitment to creating a more resilient and sustainable energy future while also making electricity bills more affordable makes them an ideal partner for co-developing this unique VPP program. This initiative raises the bar for future-proofing our electricity infrastructure and delivering cost savings to customers.”
To maximize the impact of the VPP and other strategic initiatives, NRG will embark on a broad multi-year technology transformation with Google Cloud. Through the use of Google Cloud's data, analytics, and AI technology, NRG will be able to do things like better predict weather conditions, forecast wind and solar generation output, and create predictive pricing models, allowing for more efficient production and ultimately ensuring the home energy experience is seamless for customers.
"As we move toward a more sustainable future and face increasing energy demands, Google Cloud recognizes the importance of partnering with innovators like NRG and Renew Home to help transform the consumer energy experience with AI and the best of Google Cloud,” said Michael Clark, President, North America, Google Cloud. "Our collaboration will help Texas meet its growing energy demands, and also empower consumers to get more from their energy, smart home, and essential home services in the future.”
NRG and Renew Home expect to roll out their VPP program to Texas customers in the spring of 2025.
About NRG
NRG Energy, Inc. is a leading energy and home services company powered by people and our passion for a smarter, cleaner, and more connected future. A Fortune 500 company operating in the United States and Canada, NRG delivers innovative solutions that help people, organizations, and businesses achieve their goals while also advocating for competitive energy markets and customer choice. More information is available at www.nrg.com. Connect with NRG on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X.
About Renew Home
Renew Home is building North America's largest residential virtual power plant and transforming American households into a cohesive force for energy management. By enabling homes to easily reduce and shift the timing of energy use, Renew Home unlocks household savings and supports grid reliability and energy affordability. Through collaborations with industry-leading manufacturers and more than 100 utility partnerships, we deliver flexible, dispatchable power at scale. Renew Home is a Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP) company. Learn more at www.renewhome.com.
About Google Cloud
Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offers a powerful, fully integrated and optimized AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications, to help organizations transform. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner.
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions and typically can be identified by the use of words such as “expect,” “estimate,” “should,” “anticipate,” “forecast,” “plan,” “guidance,” “outlook,” “believe” and similar terms. Although NRG believes that the expectations are reasonable, it can give no assurance that these expectations will prove to be correct, and actual results may vary materially.
NRG undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. The foregoing review of factors that could cause NRG’s actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in the forward-looking statements included in this news release should be considered in connection with information regarding risks and uncertainties that may affect NRG’s future results included in NRG’s filings with the SEC at www.sec.gov.
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Source: NRG Energy Inc.