How Your Home May Save the Grid

About this episode

The episode discusses how homes can be transformed into virtual power plants to enhance grid stability and support the clean energy transition.

In Episode 40, host Elisa Wood sits down with Ben Brown, CEO of Renew Home, to explore how millions of ordinary homes are being quietly transformed into virtual power plants (VPPs) — aggregated, AI-coordinated, and capable of delivering what a gas-fired peaker plant once did, at a fraction of the cost and with zero emissions. From Jimmy Carter's thermostat appeals to today's invisible, personalized energy shifting, Ben and Elisa talk about why the future of grid stability runs directly through your living room. What you'll learn: What a virtual power plant actually is, and why it's different from old-school demand response How Renew Home manages nearly 6 gigawatts of flexible load across 7.5 million households Why being distributed makes a VPP more valuable than a centralized power plant The policy gap holding back the next wave of VPP growth (and which markets are leading) How Ben's team achieves an 80% opt-in rate — without customers feeling a thing What role EVs, heat pumps, and home batteries will play in the grid of 2035 Ben Brown built the Nest Learning Thermostat and Google Home devices before spinning out Renew Home — now North America's largest residential VPP platform —…

People in this episode

Host: Elisa Wood

Guest: Ben Brown

Topics covered

• virtual power plants
• grid stability
• clean energy transition
• home energy management
• demand response
• renewable energy

Keywords

• virtual power plant
• grid stability
• clean energy
• demand response
• home batteries
• EVs
• heat pumps

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Renew Home, Google, NRG Energy

Places: Texas

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