Leap Opens New Grid Revenue Opportunity for California Batteries

Leap expands its Emergency Load Reduction Program (ELRP) offering in California, compensating battery exports and enabling streamlined portfolio enrollment

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Leap, the leading platform for building and scaling virtual power plants (VPPs), today announced its expanded offering to monetize battery storage systems within California’s Emergency Load Reduction Program (ELRP), a grid reliability program that incentivizes lower energy usage during peak summer hours.

Leap’s new ELRP A.4 offering, now available to eligible customers in Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) service area, creates an additional revenue opportunity for battery storage providers by compensating participating systems for exporting energy back to the grid. In the past, battery exports were not widely eligible for compensation across California grid reliability programs, leaving a significant portion of their flexible capacity – and value – untapped.

The offering also removes a major barrier to demand response participation: customer enrollment. Conventional opt-in models routinely see participation rates in the single digits, in part because customers must complete multi-step utility authorization processes before they can enroll. ELRP A.4 addresses this challenge by enabling providers to directly enroll their eligible battery storage customer portfolios. Customers are notified of their participation and retain the ability to opt out at any time through a straightforward process.

"California's grid needs flexible capacity now, and that means prioritizing programs designed to take full advantage of what behind-the-meter storage can provide," said Trevor McManamon, VP of Markets at Leap. "Leap has been advocating for years to unlock the full potential of batteries. By compensating battery exports and simplifying enrollment, this offering gives our partners a new way to generate revenue while helping grid operators access more of the flexible capacity already available across California."

As California’s grid reliability program landscape continues to evolve, Leap’s ELRP A.4 offering provides storage providers with an additional monetization pathway and helps prevent valuable battery capacity from remaining on the sidelines. With electricity demand rising and extreme heat placing greater pressure on the grid, Leap continues to expand opportunities for its partners to rapidly activate the distributed energy resources already deployed across homes and businesses.

About Leap

Leap is the leading platform for building and scaling virtual power plants (VPPs). Through its software-only solution, Leap facilitates fast, easy and automated access to demand response and other grid services revenue streams for the providers of battery storage systems, EV chargers, smart building technologies, and other distributed energy resources (DERs). Managing over 400,000 energy sites and devices across U.S. energy markets, Leap empowers more than 100 technology partners and their customers to unlock new value and help create a more flexible, resilient grid powered by renewable resources. Visit leap.energy to learn more.