The numbers of active company deployments, unique offtakers for VPP capacity and monetized VPP programs all grew by at least one-third year over year, according to WoodMac’s data. WoodMac’s research suggests a correlation between growth in VPP offtakers and utility commitments to data center capacity. In his note, Hertz-Shargel said the correlation could set up a win-win-win for utilities, data center operators and distributed energy resource owners. “This drives home the opportunity for utilities and even hyperscalers themselves to procure new VPP capacity to offset data center coincident peak demand, enabling faster grid connection,” he said. Brattle Group principal and distributed energy resources expert Ryan Hledik said the findings align with what he’s seeing in the distributed energy market.