Google Pays Voltus for a 1,070 MW Virtual Power Plant in PJM Through 2040, Ten Times June’s 100 MW Deal
- Added VPP capacity: 1,070 MW
- Initial June 2026 deal: 100 MW
- Contract term: through 2040
- Ramp to full capacity: three to four years
- Voltus Series D, October 2026: $225 million
Google will pay Voltus to build an additional 1,070 MW of virtual power plant capacity in the PJM Interconnection, the two companies said on October 22, 2026. The agreement expands the 100 MW deal they signed in June 2026 and runs through 2040. Voltus, based in San Francisco, will enroll businesses and homes across PJM’s 13 states and the District of Columbia. It will pay them to cut load or discharge batteries when the grid is strained. Google funds the program to offset the capacity its data centers draw in the region.
Voltus expects to reach full capacity in three to four years, spokesperson Sarah Spitz told Utility Dive. Neither company disclosed the price. Voltus CEO Dana Guernsey told Latitude Media that the first 100 MW is already over-subscribed. The size of this deal, 1,070 MW, is the result of an assessment of what and where Voltus could sign assets, she said. She said commercial and industrial batteries will make up “a chunk” of the portfolio, supported by Brightfield, the storage developer Voltus bought in 2025. Heatmap reported that the first 100 MW does not come online until 2027.
PJM has fallen short of its reliability margins as data center load grows. The grid operator forecasts 30 to 34 GW of new large-load demand by the early 2030s, Canary Media reported. The system recently peaked at 162.6 GW. Demand response revenue in PJM rose 240% from 2024 to 2025, to $523.5 million, according to market monitor Monitoring Analytics. Voltus says participants earn up to $350,000 per MW-year. Earlier in October the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission largely rejected a PJM plan that would have let the operator curtail large loads that bring no new supply.
Why It Matters
The companies call this one of the largest distributed capacity portfolios any hyperscaler has funded. Heatmap, citing Wood Mackenzie, puts North America’s total virtual power plant capacity at about 37.5 GW across roughly 2,000 programs. The new 1 gigawatt of capacity is nearly 3% of North America’s existing total, Heatmap calculated. The term matters as much as the size. Guernsey said a contract that runs to 2040 lets battery owners sign without taking merchant price risk. That is the structure corporate power purchase agreements gave wind and solar a decade ago. It also answers a criticism of the June deal, which ran only three years. The open question for PJM ratepayers is whether the capacity shows up when called. Voltus says it delivered about 105% of its committed load reduction during two PJM emergency events last week, based on preliminary data. During those events 46 GW of generation sat in planned outages and another 15 GW was unexpectedly unavailable.
What Happens Next
Enrollment starts now and the ramp runs into 2029 or 2030. Voltus told Utility Dive it has about 8.5 GW under contract across North America, while Canary Media put the figure at more than 9 GW. The company targets 20 GW by 2030, funded in part by a $225 million Series D round it closed in October, led by Generation Investment Management. Other virtual power plant deals announced this month include Budderfly’s 150 MW municipal program and a 16 MW portfolio from Sunrun, Renew Home and Tesla, Utility Dive noted. Google remains the only data center developer in a Bring Your Own Capacity contract with Voltus. Whether other hyperscalers follow is the test of Guernsey’s claim that the market has passed its inflection point.
Critical Perspective
The 1,070 MW is a target, not a resource. Nothing in this contract delivers today. Heatmap reported that even the first 100 MW does not come online until 2027. Voltus needs three to four years to reach the new figure. The companies disclosed no price. Nobody outside the deal knows what Google pays per MW-year or how that compares with the PJM capacity price it is trying to sidestep. The size itself is ambiguous. The release and Utility Dive call it an additional 1,070 MW on top of the first 100 MW. Yet Google’s Ellen Zuckerman describes the same deal as expanding the initial commitment tenfold, which points to a smaller total. The sources also disagree on the size of Voltus’s existing portfolio. Utility Dive has 8.5 GW and Canary Media has more than 9 GW. Both are company counts. The 105% performance figure from last week’s PJM emergencies rests on preliminary data from Voltus itself. How much of the 1,070 MW will PJM count as delivered when the ramp ends?
Sources
- Voltus / GlobeNewswire: Google and Voltus Announce One Gigawatt Bring Your Own Capacity Agreement in PJM (Oct 22, 2026)
- Utility Dive: Google supersizes PJM virtual power plant to more than 1 GW (Oct 22, 2026)
- Latitude Media: Google is purchasing a gigawatt of distributed capacity in PJM (Oct 22, 2026)
- Heatmap: Google Bets Big on Virtual Power Plants With 1 Gigawatt Voltus Deal (Oct 22, 2026)
- Canary Media: Google plans big virtual power plant in energy-strapped PJM grid (Oct 22, 2026)
