Virtual powerplant

Are there any plans that Victron makes it possible to implement a virtual powerplant?

Many companies here in the Netherlands are planning or already have implement virtual powerplants, but only their own batteries are compatible.

Because Victron is quite flexible, is Victron considering making interfaces to join these virtual powerplants?

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I’m also interested in this

Do see zonneplan is using a modbus 4g dongle to control the Solis S6 Series hybrid inverter they use.
Should be quite simple to implement zonneplan powerplay for victron systems!

Is controlling an battery by external modbus modems a industry standard or is this brand specific?
If this is a standard, did Victron implement it and is this external control in ESS?

Zonneplan Frank energy and NextEnergy do have VPP here in the Netherlands, but all three don’t support Victron :frowning:
They all build special interfaces to make their batteries smart.
And the only smart system on the market (Victron) isn’t supported.

Don’t understand why, VPP could even be supported in VRM!
Why isn’t Victron interested to implement this?

Hi All,
I’m also very interested in this as well. In Australia both the Federal Government (pending Labor re-election) and the West Australian governments have announced significant home battery rebates (Grid connected only) - some starting 1st July 2025. This has thrown the local solar/battery industry into a spin.
However a key caveat of being eligible for the rebate - or at least the West Australian State government rebate - is that the system needs to be Virtual Power Plant “ready”. What this actually means isn’t clear but I assume it means controllable by DNSP’s via API and an internet connection.

WA Residential Battery Scheme

There is an expectation in the local market of a significant surge in home battery installs. Given Victron’s recent success in getting the Multiplus II AS4777.2:2020 compliant and back on the CEC approved inverter listing, it would be a shame to see them miss out on sales due to not being able to offer a product eligible for the rebates.

I will say that it’s not yet clear, at least to me, what the federal government rebate will look like and if it will have the same requirements regarding VPP readiness or if it will apply for off-grid systems.

Keen to hear from others in the community and Victron on this.

Cheers.

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Yes I am also interested in this, however have been unsuccessful getting the Victron to Export power to the grid, even with the Appropriate firmware for AS4777.2:2020 compliance, my inverter was the first batches of stock shipped with this.

This has been annoying me since I am on a wholesale pricing plan (LocalVolts) which would allow me to export battery at any time, all other VPP providers in the Eastern Market do not support Victron for VPP/ESS.

I am very close to taking the Victron inverter back as being misrepresented on the ESS capabilities during my purchase. This was the primary reason to purcahse it so I could significantly reduce my ROI.

In queensland, it was one of the few states that offered subsidy of battery systems, well they did one that ruled out 80-90% of people due to combined income limits, I was not expecting rebate so went all in. Just my luck that they introduced it a few months later, lol.

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For a grid-connected solar system, the battery must be a VPP (Virtual Power Plant) feature capable and enabled.

Battery rebate in WA

  • For Synergy customers: $130 per kilowatt-hour of usable battery capacity up to 10 kWh – max rebate $1,300.
  • For Horizon Power customers: $380 per kilowatt-hour of usable battery capacity up to 10 kWh – max rebate $3,800.
    https://www.solarquotes.com.au/battery-storage/wa-rebate/

A virtual peaker plant interface would be highly desirable. Payments for this and demand shedding are substantial in our state.

They pay $250 per kilowatt of load shedding per season.
Summer typically has 80 events that are three hours long. So a 15 kW inverter with 45 kilowatt hours would with a 0.8 utilization factorcan be expected to pay out $3,000 per summer.

15KW * 250 $/kw * 0.8 KW/KW =$3,000.00

https://www.masssave.com/en/residential/rebates-and-incentives/battery-storage-and-evs/batteries

A VPP here in the Netherlands isn’t interesting anymore.

You will need a special interface to act on the imbalance market, and this interface is expensive.
There are to much commercial batteries now acting on imbalance market and this made the difference between imbalance and day ahead price not that big anymore.

Unclear is what happens with energy tax here in the Netherlands in 2027 when “salderen” stops.
Not getting back the energy tax but having to pay it charging from grid, makes trading not interesting anymore.

For commercial trading this tax issue is fixed, but not for residential batteries and V2G EVs urgent needed to fix local grid transport capacity shortage.

I call this Politic madness!!!