Somewhere out there, a home battery is sitting idle. A fleet of EV chargers is doing nothing between routes. A building full of smart thermostats is waiting for instructions that never come.
That's the gap virtual power plants are built to close. A VPP connects distributed devices into a coordinated network that responds to grid conditions in real time. When demand spikes, enrolled devices curtail consumption or discharge stored energy, the grid operator pays for that response, and the technology provider earns a share of the revenue.
For companies that sell or manage distributed energy resources, it's a recurring revenue stream, a tangible benefit for customers, and a product connected to something bigger. Here are seven things we've learned from helping partners build VPPs.
1. Find your internal champion first
A VPP program touches more teams than you'd expect: product, sales, legal, ops. Before any of that gets moving, find someone internally who is invested in making it happen, arm them with numbers, and connect the program to goals the company already cares about: new revenue, sustainability, and customer retention.
2. Create a compelling offer
Make your offers relevant to your customers. What works tends to depend on who you're selling to:
Residential customers respond well to bill credits, rewards programs, and sweepstakes.
Commercial customers with larger systems often prefer hardware or service discounts.
Some companies use future VPP revenue, which recurs over the life of a program, to fund upfront sales incentives.
3. Make opt-out your default
Certain grid programs don’t require utility account authorization, which unlocks auto-enrollment: customers are in unless they ask to be out. For residential operators especially, this changes the math significantly. Start with programs that support the opt-out pathway, then layer in programs that require individual sign-offs as you grow.
4. Sell grid services when you sell the device
There's no better moment to enroll a customer than when they're already buying. Weaving VPP sign-up into your existing sales flow saves on post-sale marketing and catches people while they're engaged. That might be a step in your app, a checkbox at checkout, or a rep who can walk someone through it in two minutes.
5. The calendar matters more than you think
Most VPP revenue is earned in summer, when grid stress peaks, and summer program deadlines typically fall in March, April, or May. Enrollment campaigns can take weeks and customers sometimes need follow-up. Treat enrollment as a year-round effort so you're not racing the clock every spring.
Want to build your VPP with Leap?
Leap partners with technology providers to connect distributed energy resources into virtual power plants and earn revenue through grid services programs. From launching your first enrollment campaign to scaling your operations across multiple markets, we've built the platform and experience to help you move faster.
6. Keep customers in the loop
Grid services are still new to most people, and a customer who doesn't hear anything after signing up is one who forgets why they enrolled. Simple communication at each stage, from confirmation to dispatch notifications to incentive payments, builds the kind of trust that keeps people in. When you tell someone their device helped ease grid strain on a hot August afternoon, that means something.
7. Automate early to maximize revenue
At a certain volume, manual management just stops working. Dispatch responses, enrollment tracking, customer notifications, setting nominations across programs: none of it scales with a spreadsheet. Partners who build API integrations from the start see revenue grow up to 7x faster and capacity performance improve up to 2x. With an extensible integration in place, expanding into new markets becomes much easier — no rebuilding required.