Part 3: From Bi-Directional to Multi-Layered: Navigating Grid Complexity
By Oleg Popovsky and Velvet Voelz
This series, From Grid Disjointedness to Grid Orchestration, explores the renewable energy industry’s evolution—from unresponsive assets and fragmented infrastructure to AI-augmented strategies for resilient, responsive, and affordable power that produces stable and attractive returns.
This is Part 3 in a series where Velvet Voelz and Oleg Popovsky explore the evolution of renewable energy assets and orchestration. Part 1 (“What if DERs Operated Like Data Centers?”) and Part 2 (“What if Forecasting Could Shape the Grid, Not Just Predict It?”) sparked interesting debate—and this next piece pushes further.
The grid has never stood still. It began as a one-way street: centralized plants pushing electrons to passive loads. Then renewables and distributed resources entered, and suddenly the street became two-way. That felt disruptive, but still manageable.
Now we’ve entered a new dimension. The grid isn’t flat anymore—it’s multi-actor and multi-layered. EVs, virtual power plants, hyperscale data centers, and neighborhood batteries are moving simultaneously, across different time horizons and market rules.
The question is no longer whether we can “keep the lights on.” It’s how the industry can keep playing in this three-dimensional system—innovating fast enough to manage complexity while keeping the investment thesis strong.
Flattening of the duck curve shows progress. Solar, storage, and flexible demand are reducing volatility and smoothing peaks. That’s good for the grid and for ratepayers. But it also compresses revenues for business models that depend on volatility. In the evolving policy landscape, revenue matters more than ever. A flattened revenue curve means that as the number of players increases, the share of the pie for each player could shrink—unless new incentives and business models explicitly value flexibility and reliability.
The Players: Different Movers, Different Roles
The grid today looks more like a board filled with actors that move in very different ways:
Utility-scale renewables → the large, linear movers. Big, steady supply additions, but relatively inflexible once built.
Hyperscale data centers → the fast, diagonal movers. Able to drop load to zero in seconds or shift demand across ISOs—reshaping wholesale prices almost instantly. By 2030, they’re projected to consume 606 TWh annually, nearly 12% of U.S. power demand (double the UK’s entire 2023 usage).
EVs, rooftop solar, home batteries → the nimble disruptors. Small on their own, but capable of reshaping local distribution when aggregated.
VPPs and aggregators → the wild cards. Pooling thousands of assets into flexible, dispatchable capacity.
ISOs and DSOs → the slow but decisive referees. They set the rules of the game, often lagging innovation but with outsized influence when they act.
Each move affects the others. A nodal price ripple changes rooftop economics. A new DERMS platform can turn thousands of nimble disruptors into something that behaves like baseload.
Why Orchestration Matters
Without orchestration, fast diagonals create oscillations, wild cards destabilize, and nimble disruptors are stranded. With orchestration, these same actors deliver:
Reliability → balancing volatility and smoothing curves.
Monetization → insurable revenues and bankable business models.
Confidence → investors allocating capital into flexibility, not stranded capacity.
We’re already seeing this in motion:
City of Utrecht’s 500 EVs serving as neighborhood batteries in Europe.
The Brattle Group’s analysis of a California VPP showing 100,000+ batteries behaving like a new power plant.
Alectra Inc. Centricity initiative in Ontario reframing the utility as orchestrator, not just operator.
Octopus Energy's KrakenFlex in the UK, showing how aggregators monetize coordination in real markets.
And then there’s software—the “chess brains” of this new grid:
Camus Energy (DSO-aligned orchestration)
IPV Flexgen - Generation - Storage - Distribution (hybrid storage + DERMS)
Itron, Inc. (metering + orchestration)
QGEM and GridBeyond (optimization-focused innovators).
These aren’t just “cool apps.” They’re strategic infrastructure.
Challenges We Can’t Ignore
Linear movers (solar, wind) see capture rates fall unless paired with storage.
Fast diagonals (data centers) force multi-ISO forecasting and risk oscillations.
Wild cards (VPPs) need stronger forecasting or risk herd-driven volatility.
Referees (ISOs/DSOs) struggle to adapt market structures to keep up.
Peak/off-peak blocks are losing meaning.
Single-source revenue models are a thing of the past. Diversified revenue stacks are now essential. The open question: how do we monetize the hidden value in existing assets (e.g. inverter-based resources providing reactive power support)?
Sidebar: Business Models in Orchestration
Today, orchestration software is typically sold to utilities and grid operators via licensing models. But when utilities optimize for their own grid needs, DER developers sometimes lose, prompting them to shift assets to other markets. This tension suggests a next frontier: shared-value business models that align operators, DERs, and investors. Whoever solves this may set the pace for the industry.
Looking Forward
The grid’s future won’t be determined by a single type of mover. Winners will be those who orchestrate across the spectrum: large linear supply, nimble distributed assets, fast-shifting demand, wild card aggregators, and slow but decisive referees.
Part 4 of this series dives into the frontier that Velvet Voelz and I both see looming large: sharpening revenue strategies, new business models and investment theses for a multifarious grid.
Until then, here some questions I’d like to leave you with:
Which business models do you see as most viable to monetize flexibility at scale? And, Who should lead orchestration in a multi-actor grid: platforms, operators, or investors?
Velvet Voelz, is an energy asset management expert who advances forecasting, revenue optimization and operational strategies in evolving power markets.
Oleg Popovsky is a founder and strategic advisor to cleantech companies focused on energy intelligence, DER monetization, and infrastructure innovation.
This article was originally published on Linkedin.