After launching their Virtual Power Plant (VPP) in California in June with utility provider Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), Tesla has expanded the program this month by partnering with Southern California Edison (SCE).
The new partnership will allow homeowners with Powerwall units in a 50,000 square mile area of central, coastal, and southern California to sign up for the VPP. After signing up customers can send electricity stored in their Powerwalls back to the grid when it needs emergency support.
In return, those customers will get $2 per kWh sent back to the grid to help reduce or avoid blackouts. (h/t: @dennis_p)
“Participate in the Emergency Load Reduction Program (ELRP) pilot offered by Southern California Edison (SCE) and support the grid while also earning compensation and maintaining your energy security,” Tesla explains on their website.
Tesla says that through the PG&E partnership, over 50,000 Powerwalls could potentially join the program. It is unclear how many more potential participants have been added with the new SCE partnership as Tesla did not include those figures on their website.
However, it could be significantly higher when simply comparing the number of customers signed up with each utility provider. SCE says they have over 15 million customers, compared to PG&E which reports having 5.5 million electric customers.
Since launching the program in June, nearly 2,200 homes with PG&E have signed up to support the grid, according to lastbulb, which tracks the number of participating homes in real-time.
