Case study | ROI
How sonnen Scaled Their VPP with Leap API Automations
Case study | ROI
How sonnen Scaled Their VPP with Leap API Automations
Case study | ROI
How sonnen Scaled Their VPP with Leap API Automations
Solution: Leap's APIs
sonnen’s operations team integrated Leap’s APIs and replaced recurring manual processes across four key use cases.
sonnen’s operations team integrated Leap’s APIs and replaced recurring manual processes across four key use cases.
Before: Manually compile meter data, event performance, and revenue from the Leap platform into customer-specific statements, taking on average 45 hours per quarter.
Before: Manually compile meter data, event performance, and revenue from the Leap platform into customer-specific statements, taking on average 45 hours per quarter.
After: Scripts pull and process Leap data automatically. Operations staff runs a script and validates results, taking on average 3 hours per quarter.
Quarterly Customer Statement Generation
Quarterly Customer Statement Generation
After: Scripts pull and process Leap data automatically. Operations staff runs a script and validates results, taking on average 3 hours per quarter.
After: Scripts pull and process Leap data automatically. Operations staff run a script and validate output in just 3 hours.
After: Scripts pull and process Leap data automatically. Operations staff run a script and validate output in just 3 hours.
Before: Annually determining and submitting customer bonus payments manually included data retrieval, calculations, and validations that took on average 70 hours to complete.
Before: Annually determining and submitting customer bonus payments manually included data retrieval, calculations, and validations that took on average 70 hours to complete.
Annual Performance Bonus Payments
Before: 4 hours in preparation for the summer season plus 1.5 hours/month ongoing over the 6-month summer season to determine additional customers to enroll, prepare new meter CSVs, upload files, and adjust participation statuses per meter.
Before: 4 hours in preparation for the summer season plus 1.5 hours/month ongoing over the 6-month summer season to determine additional customers to enroll, prepare new meter CSVs, upload files, and adjust participation statuses per meter.
After: Enter eligibility dates and run a script—a few minutes per month.
After: Enter eligibility dates and run a script—a few minutes per month.
Ongoing Portfolio Management
Before: 13 hours/month to retrieve interval data per participating device, compile CSVs, upload files, and troubleshoot data validation errors over the 6-month summer season.
Before: 13 hours/month to retrieve interval data per participating device, compile CSVs, upload files, and troubleshoot data validation errors over the 6-month summer season.
After: Script handles both data extraction and submission, and ensures data accuracy. Minutes of work per month to run the script.
After: Script handles both data extraction and submission, and ensures data accuracy. Minutes of work per month to run the script.
Interval Data Submissions
Challenges
Ensuring a great customer experience with accurate and timely reporting and payments while also managing ongoing VPP participation required a significant amount of effort from sonnen’s operations team.
Before automation:
Quarterly statements required 45 hours per cycle and annual bonuses required 70 hours per cycle of manual workbook updates and data validations.
Keeping their customer portfolio up to date required repetitive and manual tasks including managing and formatting CSVs.
Interval data submissions involved hours of retrieving data, formatting, and troubleshooting validation errors.
These processes were time-consuming, error-prone, and limited the team’s ability to grow their VPP enrollments and revenue without adding staff.
Use Cases
Use Cases
Annual Hours Saved
Annual Hours Saved
Annual Labor Savings*
Annual Labor Savings*
Dev Hours
Dev Hours
Dev Cost*
Dev Cost*
Payback Period
Payback Period
Quarterly Statements
Quarterly Statements
168 hrs
168 hrs
$11,928
$11,928
100 hrs
100 hrs
$7,400
$7,400
7 months
7 months
Annual Bonus Payments
Annual Bonus Payments
67 hrs
67 hrs
$4,757
$4,757
26 hrs
26 hrs
$1,924
$1,924
5 months
5 months
Ongoing Portfolio Management
Ongoing Portfolio Management
12 hrs
12 hrs
$852
$852
6 hrs
6 hrs
$444
$444
6 months
6 months
Interval Data Submissions
Interval Data Submissions
77 hrs
77 hrs
$5,467
$5,467
18 hrs
18 hrs
$1,332
$1,332
3 months
3 months
Operational ROI
*Using industry average $71/hr operations cost and $74/hr development cost
By investing developer time in automating these workflows, sonnen significantly improved their operations and recouped their investments in just a few months.
By investing developer time in automating these workflows, sonnen significantly improved their operations and recouped their investments in just a few months.
Impact on Growth
Automating these VPP operational workflows has driven rapid portfolio and earnings growth over the last two years. sonnen has:
Tripled their meter count in CAISO
Increased program revenue more than 10x.
Maintained a great customer experience without proportional staff increases.
Automating these VPP operational workflows has driven rapid portfolio and earnings growth over the last two years. sonnen has:
Tripled their meter count in CAISO
Increased program revenue more than 10x.
Maintained a great customer experience without proportional staff increases.
Objectives
sonnen set out to:
Automate the most labor-intensive VPP operations workflows.
Free up operations staff for high-value strategic initiatives.
Ensure scalability to handle significant customer and meter growth.
Reduce errors and compliance risk with consistent, API-driven data flows.
Growth in program revenue
10x
Growth in program revenue
10x
Increase in customer meters
3x
Increase in customer meters
3x
Decrease in manual work of key operations
95%
Decrease in manual work of key operations
95%
Objectives
sonnen set out to:
Automate the most labor-intensive VPP operations workflows.
Free up operations staff for high-value strategic initiatives.
Ensure scalability to handle significant customer and meter growth.
Reduce errors and compliance risk with consistent, API-driven data flows.
Challenges
Ensuring a great customer experience with accurate and timely reporting and payments while also managing ongoing VPP participation required a significant amount of effort from sonnen’s operations team.
Before automation:
Quarterly statements required 45 hours per cycle and annual bonuses required 70 hours per cycle of manual workbook updates and data validations.
Keeping their customer portfolio up to date required repetitive and manual tasks including managing and formatting CSVs.
Interval data submissions involved hours of retrieving data, formatting, and troubleshooting validation errors.
These processes were time-consuming, error-prone, and limited the team’s ability to grow their VPP enrollments and revenue without adding staff.
“By automating these workflows with the Leap APIs, we were able to grow and manage this much larger portfolio with the same operations team. This wouldn’t have been possible without this automation work."
“By automating these workflows with the Leap APIs, we were able to grow and manage this much larger portfolio with the same operations team. This wouldn’t have been possible without this automation work."
Geoff Ferrell
Senior Vice President, Global C&I and VPP Project Business - Americas
Key Lessons
Key Lessons
Prioritize high-effort workflows first—look for tasks done repeatedly on a monthly or quarterly cycle.
Collaborate closely between operations and technical resources to capture the business logic behind processes.
Bundle related workflows into single scripts to maximize code reuse and minimize maintenance.
Automate early—the sooner a process is automated, the more hours it saves as the VPP grows.
Prioritize high-effort workflows first—look for tasks done repeatedly on a monthly or quarterly cycle.
Collaborate closely between operations and technical resources to capture the business logic behind processes.
Bundle related workflows into single scripts to maximize code reuse and minimize maintenance.
Automate early—the sooner a process is automated, the more hours it saves as the VPP grows.
Prioritize high-effort workflows first—look for tasks done repeatedly on a monthly or quarterly cycle.
Collaborate closely between operations and technical resources to capture the business logic behind processes.
Bundle related workflows into single scripts to maximize code reuse and minimize maintenance.
Automate early—the sooner a process is automated, the more hours it saves as the VPP grows.
Impact on Growth
Automating these VPP operational workflows has driven rapid portfolio and earnings growth over the last two years. sonnen has:
Tripled their meter count in CAISO
Increased program revenue more than 10x.
Maintained a great customer experience without proportional staff increases.
Use Cases
Annual Hours Saved
Annual Labor Savings*
Dev Hours
Dev Cost*
Payback Period
Quarterly Statements
168 hrs
$11,928
100 hrs
$7,400
7 months
Annual Bonus Payments
67 hrs
$4,757
26 hrs
$1,924
5 months
Ongoing Portfolio Management
12 hrs
$852
6 hrs
$444
6 months
Interval Data Submissions
77 hrs
$5,467
18 hrs
$1,332
3 months
*Using industry average $71/hr operations cost and $74/hr development cost
By investing developer time in automating these workflows, sonnen significantly improved their operations and recouped their investments in just a few months.
Operational ROI
Solution: Leap's APIs
sonnen’s operations team integrated Leap’s APIs and replaced recurring manual processes across four key use cases.
Quarterly Customer Statement Generation
Before: Manually compile meter data, event performance, and revenue from the Leap platform into customer-specific statements, taking on average 45 hours per quarter.
After: Scripts pull and process Leap data automatically. Operations staff runs a script and validates results, taking on average 3 hours per quarter.
Annual Performance Bonus Payments
Before: Annually determining and submitting customer bonus payments manually included data retrieval, calculations, and validations that took on average 70 hours to complete.
After: Scripts pull and process Leap data automatically. Operations staff run a script and validate output in just 3 hours.
Before: 4 hours in preparation for the summer season plus 1.5 hours/month ongoing over the 6-month summer season to determine additional customers to enroll, prepare new meter CSVs, upload files, and adjust participation statuses per meter.
After: Enter eligibility dates and run a script—a few minutes per month.
Ongoing Portfolio Management
Interval Data Submissions
Before: 13 hours/month to retrieve interval data per participating device, compile CSVs, upload files, and troubleshoot data validation errors over the 6-month summer season.
After: Script handles both data extraction and submission, and ensures data accuracy. Minutes of work per month to run the script.
Objectives
sonnen set out to:
Automate the most labor-intensive VPP operations workflows.
Free up operations staff for high-value strategic initiatives.
Ensure scalability to handle significant customer and meter growth.
Reduce errors and compliance risk with consistent, API-driven data flows.
Challenges
Ensuring a great customer experience with accurate and timely reporting and payments while also managing ongoing VPP participation required a significant amount of effort from sonnen’s operations team.
Before automation:
Quarterly statements required 45 hours per cycle and annual bonuses required 70 hours per cycle of manual workbook updates and data validations.
Keeping their customer portfolio up to date required repetitive and manual tasks including managing and formatting CSVs.
Interval data submissions involved hours of retrieving data, formatting, and troubleshooting validation errors.
These processes were time-consuming, error-prone, and limited the team’s ability to grow their VPP enrollments and revenue without adding staff.
Growth in program revenue
10x
Increase in customer meters
3x
Decrease in manual work of key operations
95%
The development payback period based on the operational savings alone was less than 6 months.
sonnen, a global leader in residential energy storage and virtual power plant (VPP) innovation, leveraged Leap’s universal API suite to quickly expand its California grid services footprint.
sonnen, a global leader in residential energy storage and virtual power plant (VPP) innovation, leveraged Leap’s universal API suite to quickly expand its California grid services footprint.
Overview
Heading into 2023, sonnen had already automated two of the most labor-intensive processes in their VPP operations — customer enrollment (by embedding Leap Connect into their sign-up workflows) and dispatch event scheduling. These early wins eliminated hours of manual work and set the stage to scale.
Heading into 2023, sonnen had already automated two of the most labor-intensive processes in their VPP operations — customer enrollment (by embedding Leap Connect into their sign-up workflows) and dispatch event scheduling. These early wins eliminated hours of manual work and set the stage to scale.
In 2024 and early 2025, the team went further, automating additional operational workflows in order to free staff from repetitive tasks and allow them to redirect focus toward strategic initiatives like portfolio expansion and revenue growth. The results over these two years were impressive:
Heading into 2023, sonnen had already automated two of the most labor-intensive processes in their VPP operations — customer enrollment (by embedding Leap Connect into their sign-up workflows) and dispatch event scheduling. These early wins eliminated hours of manual work and set the stage to scale.
In 2024 and early 2025, the team went further, automating additional operational workflows in order to free staff from repetitive tasks and allow them to redirect focus toward strategic initiatives like portfolio expansion and revenue growth. The results over these two years were impressive:
Results
Over 324 hours initial total labor savings.
Less than 6 months average
immediate operational ROI.
Staff time redirected to strategic growth activities.
Over 324 hours initial total labor savings.
Less than 6 months average
immediate operational ROI.
Staff time redirected to strategic growth activities.
In 2024 and early 2025, the team went further, automating additional operational workflows in order to free staff from repetitive tasks and allow them to redirect focus toward strategic initiatives like portfolio expansion and revenue growth. The results over these two years were impressive:
The development payback period based on the operational savings alone was less than 6 months.
Results
Over 324 hours initial total labor savings.
Less than 6 months average
immediate operational ROI.
Staff time redirected to strategic growth activities.
Growth in program revenue
10x
Growth in program revenue
10x
Increase in customer meters
3x
Increase in customer meters
3x
Decrease in manual work of key operations
95%
Decrease in manual work of key operations
95%
The development payback period based on the operational savings alone was less than 6 months.
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© Leapfrog Power, Inc. 2025. All Rights Reserved.
© Leapfrog Power, Inc. 2025. All Rights Reserved.