VCharge

VCharge developed a cloud-based platform for what it called "Transactive Load": electric thermal storage (ETS) heaters, electric vehicles and other electrical loads coupled to energy storage that can respond dynamically to grid conditions and participate in electricity and ancillary services markets. Its VNet software used optimization algorithms to buy electrical energy when it was cheapest while simultaneously providing balancing and stabilisation services to grid operators and other market participants, addressing the physical and economic volatility introduced by wind and solar generation.

The company's first commercial application retrofitted new and existing electric storage heaters with patented SmartBricks controls, allowing residents to manage heating from a smartphone. Deployed with social housing landlords, the approach was positioned as improving resident comfort and lowering bills — addressing fuel poverty — while aggregating the heaters into grid-facing flexibility. By the time of its 2017 acquisition, VCharge had developed projects on six electric grids in five countries and operated what it described as the world's largest aggregated residential "virtual battery" delivering ancillary services, comprising thousands of electric thermal storage heaters serving the PJM Interconnection grid operator in the United States, at a stated one-thirtieth of the cost of a comparable lithium-ion battery.

Founding story

Jessica Millar, trained as a mathematician, founded VCharge in March 2009 to bring modern optimization and communications technology to bear on the problem of intermittent renewable energy generation. George Baker, who taught at Harvard Business School for 23 years and had developed the largest community-owned wind power project on the East Coast while on leave in 2008-2009, joined the company in 2010 as CEO.

Business model

VCharge supplied heating controls and a software platform to utilities, grid operators, social housing landlords and end users, aggregating controlled loads into a dispatchable resource that could be monetised in energy and ancillary services markets. Under OVO, the technology was to be paired with a smart energy tariff offered to households with electric storage heaters.

Revenue derived from providing balancing and stabilisation services to grid operators and electricity market participants by controlling electrical loads coupled to energy storage, alongside heating control upgrades for residential customers.

Traction

Projects on six electric grids across five countries; a PJM-participating aggregated residential virtual battery comprising thousands of electric thermal storage heaters; and trials over 2016 with major social housing landlords in London, Scotland and the North East of England ahead of a planned Great Britain rollout targeting 1.5 million households with electric storage heaters.

Latest developments

OVO completed the acquisition of VCharge in February 2017 — the first acquisition in OVO's history — with Toby Ferenczi serving as VCharge managing director; OVO planned to offer heating control upgrades with a new smart energy tariff to UK households with electric storage heaters later that year.