Nobody really knows how much power the data center boom will need — and that’s putting utilities in a tough spot. If they underinvest in power plants and the grid, economic growth and energy reliability will suffer. But if they overinvest, Americans may pay for infrastructure nobody needs.

One way to blunt these risks, a new report says, is scaling up virtual power plants. These are networks of rooftop solar systems, home batteries, and other distributed energy equipment that utilities can control remotely to free up space on the grid we already have. 

As of 2025, the U.S. had 113 gigawatts of distributed energy resources that could be used for VPPs, says the report published Thursday by consultancy The Brattle Group on behalf of The Pew Charitable Trusts. If the country can more than quadruple that capacity to 524 GW by midcentury, it could avoid the need for $614 billion in grid investments. In turn, the report estimates, the average household electricity bill would drop by $122 per year by 2050.

The findings are largely in line with previous analyses of how VPPs can save consumers money. Paying lots of homes and businesses to use less electricity or share their solar and battery power when grid demand peaks can be cheaper than building more power plants and grid infrastructure — although that relies on utility planners being confident enough that VPP capacity will dependably show up to forgo those investments. 

But Brattle’s report goes a step further than past analyses, looking at how VPPs could also act as a hedge against uncertain data center demand.

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