AS TEXAS' ENERGY DEMAND SOARS, A PILOT PROGRAM LOOKS TO BOLSTER GRID WITH "VIRTUAL POWER PLANTS"

On sunny days in the Hill Country, Tom Cook taps open an app on his phone and watches the power generated from the solar panels on his roof flow to his home and out to the state power grid.

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Cook has a battery storage system on the side of his home in Bandera to power things during outages. The rest of the time, his retail electric provider sends power from his battery back to the grid.

In turn, he gets a monthly bill credit and a sense of community service in supporting the grid.

"We get the sun beaten down on us, and it's good to have the sun pay us back," Cook said.

Cook, 72, installed solar panels and a battery in September as part of a program offered by his retail electric provider, Bandera Electric Cooperative.

Along with Tesla, Bandera Electric, a small co-op based in the so-called Cowboy Capital of the world, qualified for a state pilot program to show how everyday Texans could participate directly in the wholesale power market.

The companies facilitate that participation by pulling together small energy resources spread across communities — like residential solar panels and batteries, smart thermostats and the batteries in electric vehicles - and funneling that extra power to the state grid when the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the primary grid operator, signals a need for it.

The result is what's called a "virtual power plant" - a burgeoning resource that, across the state, has the potential to send thousands of megawatts of energy back to the grid in moments of crisis.

"It's just another tool in the toolbox for ERCOT to switch on and off," Matthew Boms, executive director of the Texas Advanced Energy Business Alliance, said. "It gives us as much resources as a traditional power plant would, and those are technologies that a lot of folks in Texas are already using!"

Cook's home is one of 34 currently enrolled in Bandera Electric's virtual power plant, a small but growing collection of batteries that can offer the grid about 0.5 megawatts at a time.