{"id":93674,"date":"2025-08-05T06:31:31","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T21:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=93674"},"modified":"2025-08-05T10:23:29","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T00:53:29","slug":"accc-virtual-power-plants-mb3240","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/accc-virtual-power-plants-mb3240\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia’s Consumer Watchdog Weighs In On VPP Programs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Virtual<\/p>\n

Participation in new energy services such as virtual power plants is building and consumers need better protection says the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).<\/p>\n

In the ACCC’s recently released thirteenth report relating to its inquiry into the National Electricity Market (NEM), new energy services are included for the first time.<\/p>\n

Just briefly, a virtual power plant<\/a> is generally a distributed network of solar and battery systems, with charging and discharging of batteries from and to the grid controlled by a central operator. Participants usually receive incentives for handing over some\/all control of their battery. These can include sign-up payments, regular credits, better feed-in tariffs, discounts on mains electricity consumed or discounted\/’free’ batteries (or a mix).<\/p>\n

The ACCC report indicates 38,200 customers were participating in VPPs across New South Wales, South-East Queensland, Victoria and South Australia as at January this year; increasing at an average rate of 21.9% every six months in the two and a half years to January 2025.<\/p>\n

In most states, VPP uptake had still lagged well behind battery installations as at January 2 this year. Here’s the ACCC’s comparison of battery installations and virtual power plant participation rates by region.<\/p>\n

\"VPP<\/p>\n

The result for New South Wales is a head-scratcher, but the ACCC suggests this may be due to the NSW Government\u2019s VPP subsidy<\/a> for customers. But even with the incentive, the proportion still seems incredibly high.<\/p>\n

It’s worth noting the ACCC’s figures are based on the Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO\u2019s) distributed energy resource register, which is a voluntary database of information about devices installed in the NEM. While representing “a large proportion” of batteries installed, not all are accounted for.<\/p>\n

As for why elsewhere consumers are holding back, the ACCC’s research suggests:<\/p>\n