Virtual Power Plants: The Grid Capacity Nobody Had to Build

On the evening of Sept. 9, 2026, with a heat wave pushing electricity demand across California toward its limits, more than 140,000 home batteries started discharging at the same time. Over a three-hour window, they sent more than 580 megawatts of power into the state's grid, roughly what a large conventional power plant puts out. Nobody broke ground on anything and no fuel got burned. The batteri