In 1950, the English mathematician Alan Turing developed what he called the “imitation game”. Later received the name Turing testIn the experiment, a human participant is asked to talk to an unknown partner and try to determine whether it is a computer or a person on the other end of the line. If a person cannot understand it, the machine is tested. Turing test.
Electrical network Operators are currently preparing their version of the game. Virtual power plantswhich unite small distributed energy resources are increasingly being used to balance electricity supply and demand. The question is, can they do the job as well as conventional power plants?
Grid operators can now find out by running a Turing-like test called Huels on these power plants. To pass the Huels test performance virtual power plant should be indistinguishable from normal power plant. The judge is a human network operator.
Virtual power plant developer EnergyHubbased in Brooklyn, New York, developed the test and published it in official document released today. “What we're really trying to do is trick operators into feeling that these virtual power plants can act, feel and smell like regular power plants,” says Paul HinesChief Scientist at EnergyHub. “This is kind of the first litmus test.”
What are virtual power plants (WPPs)?
The question of choosing a virtual or traditional power plant is timely. Virtual power plants, or VPPs, are networks of devices such as solar panel on the roof panels, house batteriesand smart thermostats that connect via software to collectively supply or conserve electricity..
Unlike usual electricity production For systems that can run one large gas plant when electricity demand peaks, wind farms use small, widely available equipment. For example, a VPP can use power from hundreds of network-connected devices. electric cars or on the roof solar panels. Or it could force smart thermostats in homes or businesses to turn off heating or cooling systems to reduce demand.
The technology comes at a time when concerns about power demand in data centers are reaching fever pitch. Consulting agency BloombergNEF estimates Data Center Energy Demand United States will reach 106 gigawatts by 2035– 36 percent more than predicted just seven months ago.
How utilities and grid operators will meet growing demand is unclear, and they face challenges on many fronts. Turbines for natural gas plants are on backorder and new nuclear reactors this is still many years away. Wind and solar power, although cheap and quick to build, do not produce electricity 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. data centers demand and face an uphill political battle under the Trump administration.
All this together created opening for VPPwhich could add gigawatts to the grid without significantly increasing electricity rates. “This is a political issue. If you said you were going to get your energy costs under control, this is literally the only way to do it in 12 months,” he says. Jigar ShahA clean energy investor in Factor in Washington, D.C., who led the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Loan Programs during the Biden administration.
VPPs can also reduce the need for utilities to invest in distribution equipment by avoiding supply chain shortages and inflated prices, says Shah. “There is no other idea that can be implemented in 12 months and has such a big impact,” he says.
According to US data in 2024 Department of Energy reportBy 2030, wind farms could provide 80 to 160 gigawatts of power across the U.S.—enough to meet 10 to 20 percent of peak grid demand.
How can VPPs gain the trust of network operators?
But first, VPP developers need to get network technology developers on their side. Tests like the Huels test are critical to building that confidence. “In order for us to rely on VPPs, they need to pass the Huels test, and operators need to be able to count on VPPs to supply power when it is needed,” he said. Lauren Schwisberghead of a non-profit research group Rocky Mountain Institute who co-authored the recent report on the runway and was not involved in the development of the test.
Matthias Ewelsan engineer who worked at EnergyHub for more than four years first came up with the idea for the 2024 test. After discussing this idea with colleagues and, somewhat ironically, ChatGPTHuels presented the company's concept.
Hulse developed the test subjectively. Currently, in its earliest version, it appears to follow a guiding principle similar to the Supreme Court ruling:I know it when I see it» test for what differentiates pornography from erotic art. That is: passing the test depends on who is judging. If the grid operator believes that energy from a wind farm is as reliable as electricity from a real power plant that burns gas to produce electronsthen the runway has passed.
The Hules test consists of four levels. To achieve Tier 1, the VPP must be able to reduce demand on the grid, for example by successfully scheduling smart thermostats to reduce power when the grid experiences peak demand. To achieve Level 2, a VPP must be able to respond to market and grid data and reduce demand when prices reach a certain level, or connect to solar panels or batteries when electricity is needed. These levels involve decision makers.
Passing the Huels test occurs at level 3. It is at this stage that the VPP can function automatically, as it has proven reliable enough to be distinguished from a gas peaking power plant – a type of power plant that is connected as a backup only when the network is under load. Passing Level 4 assumes that VPPs operate completely autonomously, adjusting output based on a number of actively changing variables throughout the day.
“The simulation game that Alan Turing came up with was whether a computer could trick an interrogator into thinking it was actually a human being, even though it was a computer,” Hines says. “We are proposing the idea of a test that would allow us to say: Can we fool the network operator into thinking that aggregation of many devices, rather than a large gas plant, is actually solving their problems?”
Can wind farms imitate gas peaking plants?
Peaking power plants generate electricity only about 5 percent of the time during their lifetime. This makes them easier to simulate for wind farms because, as with peaking power plants, there is a limited amount of energy that can be supplied response to request or assembled from batteries, provides only bursts of power that last several hours at a time.
It is much more difficult to create a full-scale gas plant that runs 65 percent of the time or more, or a nuclear power plant that typically runs at least 95 percent of the time. This would require equipping the VPP network with long-term storage that could be turned on during the day when the solar panels are at peak power and discharged overnight. “You start talking about VPPs with a lot of batteries that can run 365 days a year,” Hines says. “This is a road we can take.”
EnergyHub is testing its VPP systems at Huels. Last year EnergyHub successfully tested with Arizona State Service, Duke Energy in North Carolina and National Network V Massachusetts. In Arizona, EnergyHub's software connected to homes with solar panels and smart thermostats and turned on air conditioners to “pre-cool” homes during the day when the sun was generating a lot of electricity. That allowed the state's largest utility to reduce demand during peak hours, when residents typically return home from work to turn on the power. TVs and turn on the air conditioners.
“With solar, you have too much power in the middle of the day, then you get into early evening, and you force people to increase their evening load just as solar power is going down,” Hines says. “You need something that can handle that schedule. We built something that can do that.”
This gives the company a score somewhere between 2 and 3 on the Huels testing scale. Completing Level 3 “will take several years,” Hines says.
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