Google will fund a 1 gigawatt virtual power plant run by Voltus on the PJM grid, to supply capacity for its operations there. The deal adds 1,070 megawatts to the 100 megawatts the two agreed in June, the companies said on Thursday.

PJM serves 67 million customers across 13 states and the District of Columbia. The companies called the new capacity one of the largest known distributed portfolios a hyperscaler has deployed.

How the plant works

A virtual power plant has no turbines. Voltus pools spare capacity from local businesses and homes, and Google pays for it. When the grid is under strain, Voltus signals those sites to cut their power use. They do it with batteries, smart thermostats, changes to industrial processes and other flexible equipment.

Voltus then passes the money on to the people taking part, through bill savings and direct payments. The scheme runs under its Bring Your Own Capacity programme. The companies cited a recent report from The Brattle Group. It predicts US consumers could save more than $100bn over the next decade by using the grid better.

“Expanding our initial commitment tenfold demonstrates our core effort to actively bring our own capacity to the grids that serve us,” said Ellen Zuckerman, Google’s head of energy market development for the Americas.

Buying the capacity this way means Google’s operations in PJM support the region’s reliability, she said. It also brings money to local communities.

It is Google’s second big power deal this month. It signed a 20-year agreement with Constellation for 890MW of nuclear power on 6 October. In September, Google and Nvidia launched an alliance to make data centres flex their power use.

Voltus raised a $225 million Series D on 8 October. It connects batteries, on-site generation, flexible load and electric vehicles to electricity markets.

“This significant expansion of our work with Google translates data center growth into direct economic benefits for businesses and homes,” said Dana Guernsey, Voltus’s chief executive.