Platte River signs contract with virtual power plant vendor. Posted on June 16, 2026 Partnership key to enabling customer participation in the energy transition FORT COLLINS, Colo., - Platte River Power Authority, the community-owned, wholesale power provider for Estes Park, Fort Collins, Longmont and Loveland, selected EnergyHub to help design and deploy a virtual power plant, or VPP. Platte River has long planned for a VPP as part of its strategy to provide dispatchable, or on demand, power to support its increasingly renewable energy portfolio. "We're pleased to formalize the partnership between Platte River and EnergyHub as we continue to make progress on the VPP," says Paul Davis, director of distributed energy resources for Platte River. "Their experience with developing accessible and impactful customer programs aligns well with the programs that have served our owner communities for over 20 years." EnergyHub is a leading provider of clean energy software and services that unlock the full potential of distributed energy resources (DERs) for utilities and their customers. With the EnergyHub platform, utilities can enroll and manage DERs like thermostats, EVs, and batteries in VPPs that deliver grid flexibility and reliability. "Platte River has built deep, decades-long trust with the communities it serves, and that's the ideal foundation for a successful VPP," said Kelley Coats, senior director, client services at EnergyHub. "We're proud to bring EnergyHub's platform to Platte River through Efficiency Works, giving customers in Estes Park, Fort Collins, Longmont, and Loveland simple, meaningful ways to support a cleaner grid while keeping comfort and convenience front and center." A VPP isn't a physical power plant, but rather a system that links many small, customer owned devices so they can work together as a flexible energy resource. While individual adjustments may be small - such as shifting when a device runs or adjusting a thermostat by a degree or two - the combined effect across thousands of homes and businesses helps manage costs for consumers and for the utility. While Platte River and EnergyHub signed a formal agreement earlier this month, the teams - along with staff from the owner communities - have been working together since last year to develop the first VPP programs. "A massive amount of work has been going on behind the scenes to develop effective programs for customers," says Bryce Brady, manager of distributed energy solutions for Platte River. "Collaboration has been key to expand the Efficiency Works(TM) program and services, and we appreciate the engagement by owner community program staff with our team to approach these programs thoughtfully and intentionally to produce the best outcome." The first VPP program, planned for late summer 2026, will focus on smart thermostats, with an EV charge management program to follow later in 2026. These offerings will be available through Efficiency Works, the long-standing collaboration between Platte River and the owner communities, that helps residential and commercial customers use energy effectively through assessments, programs and product rebates. Customer programs are only one part of the VPP environment. EnergyHub is also providing a system called an "edge" distributed energy resource management system (or "edge DERMS"). The edge DERMS is a software system that tracks energy demand across thermostats, EVs, and batteries, enables customers' devices to respond to utility signals, and connects behind-the-meter DERs to the wider grid and energy markets. In addition, utilities will increasingly rely on advanced software known as a "grid DERMS" to help them manage increasingly complex interactions between the customers' resources and the local electric distribution system. With these tools, grid operators can actively signal customers to shift energy use, taking advantage of times when renewable power is abundant and conserving when demand rises and supply tightens. As Platte River and the owner communities continue building the systems that will support the full VPP, customers will begin to see new opportunities to participate through Efficiency Works. These programs will allow customers simple ways to support the grid, make the most of renewable energy and manage their electricity use. Efficiency Works is a regional utility collaboration that provides guidance and resources to enable customers to use energy more effectively, work toward a noncarbon energy future and build strong, resilient communities for customers served by Platte River Power Authority and its owner communities. More information about Efficiency Works, including DER technologies, is available at The Learning Center on the Efficiency Works website at efficiencyworks.org/learning-center-technologies/. Accessibility notice: Per the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Platte River Power Authority will provide reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with a disability who need assistance. Please email Platte River Power Authority at [email protected] or call 970-226-4000. "Walk-in" requests for auxiliary aids and services may be honored to the extent possible but can be unavailable if advance notice is not provided.

As EV load grows, utilities use managed charging to harness flexibility, lower costs. Active managed charging can delay costly system upgrades while saving customers money, utilities, automakers and aggregators say, but a lack of standardized data-sharing is slowing adoption. Published April 9, 2026 The 7.2 million electric vehicles in the United States are simultaneously driving the need for grid upgrades and providing utilities with a powerful tool to defer those expenses. U.S. utilities are working with third-party software providers and automakers to develop and scale managed charging programs that can spread out the EV charging load and avoid creating peaks that stress local systems, helping to defer infrastructure upgrades that drive up rates. Manufacturers including General Motors, Ford and Rivian also have seen value in these programs and are partnering with distributed resource service providers like EnergyHub, WeaveGrid and Chargescape to improve customer experience and access to these programs. Despite federal policy changes in 2025 that withdrew support for EVs, sales have so far remained more or less consistent. The battery electric vehicle share of U.S. car sales in March was estimated to be 5.2%, sustaining the 5% share that segment has averaged since November 2025, S&P Global reported. Even before the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran spiked gas prices, EV load was expected to grow significantly in the coming years. Managed charging - commonly referred to as V1G to indicate the one-way flow of energy from the grid to the vehicle - is already being used to shift load from peak demand hours. But exploiting its full potential for reliability and cost savings will require standardized data-sharing protocols that have so far proven elusive for the industry, stakeholders told Utility Dive. "There is still work to do," said Zach Woogen, executive director of the Vehicle-Grid Integration Council. But by "growing partnerships" among automakers, utilities and aggregators, utilities can learn how to use managed charging "to make their systems more reliable and address the affordability crisis," he said. Seth Frader-Thompson, president of EnergyHub, a leading aggregator that partners with GM, Rivian, Toyota and Tesla on managed charging programs, offered a similar perspective. "Grid-aware managed charging ensures EVs can serve as a resource to manage the load growth we are seeing across the country," he said. From passive to active managed charging. "The technology of managed charging, or smart charging, is quite mature, and there are no technological hurdles," said Dave McCreadie, director of EV-grid services at Ford. "Communications between utilities, automakers, aggregators and their vehicles has been demonstrated over and over across many utility programs and has worked well." In addition to avoiding demand peaks through managed charging, EVs can be integrated into the grid as bidirectional assets that not only store power for driving but also provide backup power to homes (which is called V2H, vehicle to home) and export energy to the distribution system (V2G, vehicle to grid) or any other external system (V2X, vehicle to everything). But the first step is moving from passive to active managed charging, industry sources said. In 2025, legislative or regulatory efforts in 32 states and Puerto Rico addressed improving residential access to managed charging, according to the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center's annual state electric vehicle policy review. Many utilities already offer "passive" managed charging programs that use time-of-use rates to encourage customers to charge during off-peak hours, but the utilities still rely on customers to manage their own charging schedules. As the technology has matured, utilities are increasingly turning to "active" managed charging, whereby the customer largely turns over charging capabilities to the utility or service provider, which can adjust the load in real time based on system conditions. Regulators approved nine new active managed charging programs last year, according to the state EV policy North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center's review. "Utilities see the millions of EVs in their territories as flexible load that they can tap into just when data center demand is placing strain on their systems." Joseph Vallone CEO of Chargescape, which aggregates Ford, BMW, Honda, Nissan, Tesla, Stellantis and Rivian vehicles for over a dozen power utilities. Experts say active managed charging can avoid some of the unintended consequences that have plagued passive programs. For example, in California, passive managed charging has led to a secondary peak right after midnight, when the rate drops.

Frontier Forum: how VPPs earn grid-scale trust. Listen to the episode on: Can a grid operator tell the difference between a virtual power plant and a traditional one? That's the idea behind the Huels Test, a framework developed by EnergyHub to answer a simple but consequential question: when does a distributed fleet of customer devices become reliable enough to function like a power plant? Passing the test means more than just aggregating thermostats or batteries. It means delivering predictable, repeatable performance that utility planners and operators trust enough to rely on during system peaks. And it's no longer theoretical. During a series of brutal winter cold snaps across the Southeast this year, Duke Energy leaned on tens of thousands of connected devices - smart thermostats, batteries, and water heaters - to help manage record-breaking winter peaks. Together, they formed a virtual power plant that the utility could dispatch when the grid was tight. In this Frontier Forum, Stephen Lacey talks with Stacy Phillips, Managing Director of Customer Load Management at Duke Energy, and Seth Frader-Thompson, president and co-founder of EnergyHub, about the spectrum of virtual power plants. They discuss how VPPs are evolving from traditional demand-response programs into operational grid resources, and what still needs to change before utilities treat them exactly like conventional power plants. This is partner content, brought to you by EnergyHub. This conversation was recorded live as part of Latitude Media's Frontier Forum with EnergyHub. Watch the full video here. EnergyHub works with more than 160 utilities across North America to build and scale virtual power plants using its Edge DERMS platform. Read EnergyHub's white paper outlining the VPP maturity model and discover what VPPs can do for your grid.