As rooftop solar gets hammered, virtual power plants offer a way forward

The rooftop solar industry is facing an unprecedented crisis. Utilities are cutting incentives. Major residential solar installers and financiers have gone bankrupt. And sweeping legislation just passed by Republicans in Congress will soon cut off federal tax credits that have supported the sector for 20 years.

But the fact remains that solar panels — and the lithium-ion batteries that increasingly accompany them — remain the cheapest and most easily deployable technologies available to serve the ever-hungry U.S. power grid.

During last month’s heat wave across New England, as power prices spiked and grid operators sought to import energy from neighboring regions, distributed solar and batteries reduced stress on the grid. Nonprofit group Acadia Center estimated that rooftop solar helped avoid about $20 million in costs by driving down energy consumption and suppressing power prices.

To read the full article from Canary Media, click here.