.png)
Factor This
Launched in 2022, the Factor This Podcast has featured many of the most influential leaders driving the energy transition. From solar and battery storage executives to utility CEOs, the Factor This Podcast brings unique insights and answers to the energy industry’s most pressing challenges. Go beyond high-level trends and mainstream talking points with actionable takeaways.
The Factor This Podcast grew in 2023 with the addition of This Week in Cleantech, a weekly roundup of the biggest stories in climate and clean energy in 15 minutes or less. With new episodes every Friday, Factor This content director Paul Gerke and Mike Casey, a cleantech commentator and president of Tigercomm, bring listeners the most important headlines of the week while featuring the leading journalists behind the stories.
The all-new FactorThis.com is your best source for news, commentary, and analysis of renewable energy and the power grid.
Factor This
Hype aside, virtual power plants are breaking through
Tell us what you think of the show!
Virtual power plants were always doomed to fall into clean tech's notorious hype cycle.
There are plenty of reasons for that, but start with the name. 'Virtual power plant' means everything and nothing all at once. Then there's the origin story—one rooted in the far-less-sexy, and decades-old concept of demand response. Round that out with projections that utilities could save as much as $35 billion in just 10 years by embracing VPPs and you have the makings of a hype cycle even green hydrogen can't reach.
But VPPs are proving to have staying power. Federal and state policies have opened new markets. The tech works, and projects are being deployed at breakneck speed.
Episode 79 of the Factor This! podcast features Michael Smith, CEO of the leading C&I virtual power plant provider CPower, who breaks down the technology behind VPPs, where the industry stands today, and the critical markets no one is looking at.
That's all next on Factor This!
