A grid software company created a Turing test for VPPs

In 1950, mathematician Alan Turing developed the imitation game, a test to see if machines can produce responses indistinguishable from those created by humans. Turing’s landmark framework to measure the intelligence of machines is known as the “Turing test”—and it’s what inspired grid software company EnergyHub’s new “Huels test” on the functionality of virtual power plants (VPPs).

A VPP is a group of batteries, thermostats, EVs, and/or other smart technologies that are programmed to dispatch power to and from the grid simultaneously. And while VPPs are proven to help manage rising energy demand and grid stress, there’s still a lot of skepticism surrounding them for larger-scale use.

EnergyHub’s Huels test, named after Matthias Huels, a former EnergyHub data scientist, aims to separate sophisticated VPPs that are able to perform like traditional peaker power plants from those that can’t. Peaker plants are extra power plants, usually powered by fossil fuels, created to satisfy infrequent moments of excess energy demand.

EnergyHub defines the Huels test thusly: “If a grid operator is presented with two resources—one being a traditional peaker plant and the other a VPP—can they tell which is which in operation? If the operator cannot tell the difference, the VPP passes the Huels test and achieves parity—the point at which it can be planned, dispatched, and credited like a traditional plant.”

A VPP that passes the Huel test matches “the visibility, schedulability, and availability of traditional grid resources,” and does so for sustained periods of time.

But what becomes of VPPs that can’t pass the test? In conjunction with the Huels test, EnergyHub created a framework to show the specific steps VPPs need to complete to replace power plant infrastructure.

EnergyHub’s report noted that most advanced VPPs on the market operate at the second level of the framework—they’re partially autonomous and can provide power to the grid for shorter periods of time. But to pass the Huels test, VPPs need to be at the third or fourth level of the framework: providing energy for six hours or more, autonomously dispatching power to the grid as needed, and operating at a level of reliability that exceeds traditional power plants altogether.

While VPPs can take many forms and serve the grid at varying levels, they’re an integral part of making use of abundant renewable energy resources and eventually replacing the non-renewable power infrastructure, like peaker plants, that the US relies on.

“[The way] we can evolve into this kind of renewable, electrified energy system that’s fossil fuel-free is to harness renewable energy and harmonize it with the actual grid’s needs and dispatch it only in a way that serves true value to the grid,” Blake Richetta, the CEO of VPP provider Sonnen Inc., told Tech Brew earlier this year.