Virtual power plant (VPP) platform profile
Voltus: C&I flexibility, dispatched every day
How the commercial and industrial aggregator earns, what it paid participants in 2025, and how its Google deal works.
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The short answer
- Voltus is a commercial and industrial (C&I) aggregator. It enrolls businesses, factories, water utilities and increasingly home batteries, dispatches them into wholesale markets and utility programs, and keeps a share of what they earn (Voltus).
- 2025 was its biggest year. It managed 8.1 GW, delivered 816,000 MWh of grid relief, dispatched on every day of the year and paid customers $240 million (Voltus).
- That works out to about $30 per kW-year. Dividing 2025 customer payments by managed capacity gives roughly $30 per kW-year paid to participants, a useful reference point against capacity prices.
- Data centers are the new buyers. Google is funding up to 100 MW a year of distributed capacity in PJM through Voltus’s Bring Your Own Capacity product (Voltus), and Voltus raised $225 million in October 2026 with a 20 GW goal for 2030 (Voltus).
Where Voltus 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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How Voltus earns
Grid operators and utilities pay Voltus for making capacity available and for reducing load when called, much as they pay a power plant. Voltus keeps a portion and passes the rest to the site; it says customers face no out-of-pocket cost if they underperform an event (Voltus). That is the classic C&I demand response model, now operated daily rather than a few times a summer: Voltus reported dispatching on 365 of 365 days in 2025 (Voltus).
Its customers include food processors, wineries, glass makers, hotels and wastewater plants (Voltus). Newer partnerships extend the model: Siemens building controls, CenTrio district-energy thermal storage, Sunrun home batteries for hyperscaler deals in PJM and MISO, and Octopus Energy U.S. for data-center flexibility (Voltus).
Voltus capacity and 2030 goal
Gigawatts (GW) of managed flexible capacity, company-reported
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Bring Your Own Capacity: data centers paying for flexibility
Under a three-year agreement announced June 2, 2026, Voltus will aggregate up to 100 MW a year of accredited distributed capacity in PJM, such as batteries and smart thermostats at local homes and businesses, into a Google-funded VPP, and pay the participants (Voltus). Google describes it as new capacity for the grid that serves its data centers (Google).
The structure is new: a large electricity buyer, not a utility, pays for accredited demand-side capacity to offset the strain its own load adds. For utilities and grid operators, the key questions are accreditation (does PJM count it?) and additionality (is the capacity new, or already enrolled elsewhere?).
What it means for program design
A third-party market participant
Voltus bids directly into wholesale markets where rules allow, so utility programs compete with market revenue for the same sites.
Use $30 per kW-year as a check
Average customer pay across a large C&I portfolio is a reference point for whether a program incentive is competitive.
Hyperscalers are a new offtaker
Bring Your Own Capacity contracts add a buyer beyond utilities and grid operators, at least in capacity-short regions like PJM.
Method and caveats
Figures are company-reported, checked October 15, 2026. The $30 per kW-year figure is VPP Economics arithmetic ($240 million ÷ 8.1 GW) and blends capacity, energy and other payments across markets; it is gross pay to participants, not their net benefit after curtailment costs.