I don’t think it applies to me in LADWP territory but it’s explicit- no compensation as yet, just a beta program to something for ones neighbors.
That said, I still can’t quite figure out how it will work. For example, LADWP had rolling one hour blackouts last summer by neighborhood. Not sure how they defined a neighborhood lets assume it was a zip code.
My three PWs could power my house and another house or two but otherwise I don’t know it would be much help compared to the number of homes otherwise blacked out.
so I wonder how exactly. This would work
VPP are all a numbers game; the most expensive power is "peaker plant" power. Peaker plants are small gas turbines, or diesel powered generators that come online when larger sources fail. They can have a running cost that is ten times that of larger plants due to$/kW capital costs being higher, higher maintenance costs, and the fact that they aren't used continuously so the investment dollar has to be earned back over fewer running hours.
Having tens or hundreds of thousands of batteries that could turn on for short intervals can help the larger plants have the time to adjust up, or down, on their time scales which may be half an hour or longer depending on their size. Nuclear being the absolute slowest to turn up or turn down due to the thermal mass involved, then large coal, large hydro, etc.
The goal is 120V (+/- a few volts) & 60.0Hz at the residence. Being able to rapidly add high quality power when needed, and where needed, is an extremely valuable add to the grid for power quality, for reliability, for deferred capital investments (fewer transmission wires needed, fewer substations, smaller pole top transformers, and, of course, fewer peaker plants) and lower total cost of power to the utility, I.e. improve profits.
Now imagine that you could turn vehicle charging on/off/V2G from a central command to fine tune power quality on a neighborhood basis. $$$$ very valuable to the power utilities for all of the above reasons. VPP are just the start, though an important one. This is incredibly valuable to the utilities as it reduces their need to invest in large scale and expensive infrastructure.
There are states that mandate that small solar/hydro/wind producers are paid whatever the highest marginal cost peaker plant rates is for the utility. The logic was to improve grid reliability via distributed generation. VPP are just another flavor, but one that is agnostic as to when the power is generated, being able to readily supply it in times of need.
All the best,
BG