The new guy starts on Monday, so the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) has been burning the candle at both ends lately, especially this week, rushing to allocate unspent Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funding on promising clean energy and grid infrastructure projects.

How does a 27-state virtual power plant (VPP) sound?

Sunwealth Holdco 18 LLC (Sunwealth) has closed on a $289.7 million loan guarantee with the LPO to finance Project Polo, a scheme to deploy up to 1,000 solar photovoltaic (PV) and battery energy storage systems (BESS) across 27 states. SYSO Technologies of Boston, Massachusetts, will provide its software platform to help all of those distributed energy resources (DERs) communicate, creating a massive VPP.

Sunwealth, a commercial solar financier, developer, and owner-operator based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has a ten-year operating history serving commercial solar markets without defaulting (probably a plus for the people considering loaning them money).

Project Polo will include behind-the-meter DERs and community solar projects, primarily targeting commercial and industrial properties. Project sites include building rooftops, parking lots, multi-family properties, and underutilized land parcels across the United States.

Sunwealth estimates an aggregate capacity of 168 MW of PV and 16.8 MW (33.6 MWh) of BESS, which would lead to the avoidance of up to 4.07 million metric tons of carbon over the project’s lifetime.

The Sunwealth VPP offers advanced management of PV and BESS, enhanced forecasting of PV production and coincident peaks, and aggregation and dispatch of DERs. The software manages the PV and BESS as a VPP to support grid stability and resilience while generating additional revenue by enabling the participation of DERs in VPP programs and wholesale markets.

Project Polo is expected to create about 3,700 jobs, including approximately 1,900 solar and storage installation gigs and over 1,700 operations and maintenance jobs.

Deploying clean energy resources in disadvantaged communities without access to traditional financing is a key component of Sunwealth’s mission and strategy, which aligns with the DOE’s energy equity goals. Sunwealth has historically deployed approximately 40% of its systems to benefit disadvantaged communities and aims to install between 20% and 50% of PV plus BESS in disadvantaged communities for this project.

Sunwealth’s loan guarantee is offered through LPO’s Title 17 Clean Energy Financing Program, which includes financing opportunities for innovative energy and supply chain projects and projects that reinvest in existing energy infrastructure. 

The company submitted its application to LPO in October 2021. It got the green light not a moment too soon, as it appears likely President Trump will pump the brakes on DOE’s rampant clean tech spending. Across all LPO programs, the DOE has attracted 182 applications for projects across the country totaling more than $278.9 billion in requested loans and loan guarantees as of December 2024. That figure has been bolstered significantly over the last few weeks, as the LPO has pumped out promises of cash to utilities and clean energy companies before Trump takes office on January 20.

The U.S. boasts roughly 30 GW of VPP capacity right now. A fresh DOE report, Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Virtual Power Plants 2025 Update, provides a revamped roadmap for the public and private sector to accelerate the commercialization of VPP technologies.

The DOE contends that in order to reach a target deployment of 80-160 GW by 2030, we’ll need to pick up the pace.

Achieving “liftoff” will require progress on five imperatives:

Since the original VPP Liftoff report was released in September 2023, DOE said the pressures on the U.S. grid have intensified. Peak demand is expected to increase from approximately 800 GW in 2024 to approximately 900 GW in 2030 due to growth in energy-intensive data centers, domestic manufacturing, and the electrification of transport and heating.

Learn more about the DOE’s guidance to achieve VPP “liftoff” here.

Originally published in Renewable Energy World.