Virtual power plant (VPP) platform profile
Virtual Peaker: grid-edge DERMS for utilities and co-ops
How Virtual Peaker runs device programs for cooperatives, municipal utilities and larger utilities, and what its Topline test claims about firm capacity.
VPP Economics has no affiliation with, sponsorship from, or endorsement by any utility, aggregator, platform, or device maker named here.
The short answer
- Virtual Peaker sells grid-edge DERMS software to utilities. The Louisville, Kentucky company, founded in 2015, runs the customer-side programs of utilities, cooperatives and municipal systems: enrolling thermostats, water heaters, EV chargers and batteries, dispatching them and verifying results (Canary Media).
- Its buyers are mostly smaller utilities. Named customers range from the 7,500-customer Glasgow Electric Plant Board, its first contract, to the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority’s 42 member cities and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) (OMPA partnership).
- Its newest claim is firmer capacity. In a test on several thousand thermostats, its Topline Demand Control software lifted the firm reduction from 24.7% to 37.7% of load, about 53% more, with 25% fewer opt-outs (Virtual Peaker’s field test).
- The utility pays; customers see the utility’s program. Virtual Peaker earns software fees, and payments to participants come from the utility’s own program budget, so its scale is measured in programs, not megawatts it sells.
Where Virtual Peaker fits
Highlighted boxes are the roles this company plays; the green bar shows where its programs sit from demand response to an orchestrated VPP.
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What Virtual Peaker does
Virtual Peaker’s DERMS suite has three parts: Shift, which schedules and dispatches devices; Relay, which handles customer enrollment and messaging; and Envision, which forecasts load and available flexibility (Virtual Peaker’s product overview). It connects through device makers’ clouds rather than its own hardware. Canary Media listed thermostats from Google Nest, ecobee, Honeywell, Sensibo, Flair and Amazon; water heaters from Rheem and Aquanta; chargers from ChargePoint, Enel X and Flo; and batteries from SolarEdge, Generac and sonnen (Canary Media’s 2022 profile). The company now counts more than 30 device types (its grid-edge buyer’s guide), including Mysa line-voltage thermostats (Mysa partnership).
The company draws a line that matters for buyers. A grid DERMS manages utility-owned assets and the distribution network; a grid-edge DERMS manages devices behind customers’ meters (Virtual Peaker’s definitions). Virtual Peaker sits on the grid edge, closer to EnergyHub or Itron IntelliFLEX than to Camus Energy or OATI’s network tools.
Firm capacity from the same thermostats
Share of baseline load reduced: the lowest five-minute reduction in an event (firm capacity) and the reduction in the final hour.
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Why firm capacity is the selling point
A standard thermostat event sends one setback at the start of the window. Load drops sharply, then drifts back up as homes warm, so the reduction a utility can count on is set by the weakest minutes, not the average. Topline Demand Control, launched in May 2024, forecasts each hour’s flexibility, sets a target load shape and adjusts commands during the event to hold it (Virtual Peaker launch). On the company’s numbers, that turns a 10,000-thermostat program into the firm equivalent of about 15,000 without enrolling a new device.
That matters most where capacity is priced on a utility’s single peak hour or a wholesale capacity obligation. A cooperative paying a generation supplier on coincident peak can count only what holds through the whole hour.
Who runs programs on it
Glasgow EPB in Kentucky ran its first program, in the Tennessee Valley Authority region (Glasgow case study). SMUD uses it for water heaters (SMUD case study). Hoosier Energy, an Indiana generation and transmission cooperative, runs Connect To Save on it (Hoosier Energy program), and MidSouth Electric Cooperative in Texas uses one platform across two grid operators, ERCOT and MISO (MidSouth announcement).
Recent additions are smaller and more varied. Rappahannock Electric Cooperative in Virginia launched a smart-device program in July 2026 as power costs rose (Rappahannock Electric announcement). SMECO and ICF are piloting up to 500 connected water heaters in Maryland through 2026 (FlexHome pilot), and Newfoundland Power enrolled nearly 600 Mysa customers in two months for a winter-peak pilot (Newfoundland Power pilot).
Funding and scale
Virtual Peaker raised a $16.6 million Series A in February 2022 led by Moore Strategic Ventures with Emerson Ventures (Series A announcement), then further rounds led by Greensoil PropTech Ventures in February 2025 (Greensoil round) and Veriten in August 2025 (Veriten round). It does not publish a total of megawatts or utilities under management, so its size is best read program by program.
What it means for program design
Buy firm kW, not enrolled devices
Ask any platform for the lowest five-minute reduction across an event, not just the average or the first hour.
Small utilities can run full programs
Cooperatives and municipal systems with a few thousand meters can run multi-device programs without building software.
Expect a utility-branded front door
Customers enroll in the utility’s program, so device makers and installers plug in behind it rather than owning the relationship.
Method and caveats
Figures are company-reported or from trade press, checked November 5, 2026. The Topline field results are Virtual Peaker’s own comparison and have not been independently verified. Virtual Peaker does not publish megawatts under management or a utility count.