Originally published January 17, 2024 | By: Florian Kolb

In this article, Kolb, Chief Commercial Officer and General Manager of Energy at Intertrust Technologies, explains Texas’ unique challenges regarding its energy ecosystem. Specifically, the isolation of the grid and the decentralization of generation, transmission, distribution, and retail operations which cause issues with reliability.

According to Kolb, Texas’s implementation of virtual power plants (VPPs) is the right step to help manage energy distribution and create a more flexible and reliable power grid. VPPs are controlled via software, allowing them to have the unique ability to leverage artificial intelligence to manage energy distribution in real time.

He further explains how Australia’s use of VPPs can serve as a guide for Texas because of their power grid infrastructure similarities. The combination of deregulation, extreme climate events, and long ‘stringy’ cluster formations allows Kolb to draw parallels between the two and suggest that Texas continues to adopt VPPs because of Australia’s success with them.

To read more about what a resilient energy future could look like, read the full article at Power Mag.