Seth Frader-Thompson
2 appearances on the record.
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2 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 5 not checkable as stated how the 7 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
3 predictions · 4 assertions · 3 opinions · 3 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 7 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, and 5 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.
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Frader-Thompson: California energy regulators are lagging behind other states on VPPs
“The one thing is I would say if you're in California and you're a regulator, the rest of the country exists. And if you look at what's going on, there are lots of examples of how you could be doing this a lot better.”
Frader-Thompson: Spending $20M on software before launching a VPP is backwards
“That is in contrast to some other plans that I've seen where we're saying like, let's build out twenty million dollars worth of software infrastructure before we even stand up a program, and that's backwards.”
EnergyHub CEO: Level 2 thermostat VPPs provide peaker plant value
“Like, the smart thermostat programs are at a strong level two in general. And at level two, like I said before, they are clearly already providing the value that a peaker plant would provide.”
Frader-Thompson: Tens of thousands of events prove VPPs are 99.9% reliable
“Like, I can show you data from literally tens of thousands of events showing that this thing is 99.9 plus percent reliable.”
Frader-Thompson: VPPs will be dispatched hundreds of times per year
“Now it's a resource because of that repeatability that you can use operationally, and you can be confident that if you need to use it, you know, today I think maybe dozens of times per year, but moving toward hundreds of times per year, that repeatability just…”
Frader-Thompson: VPPs need roughly 50 MW to interest utility control rooms
“I think scale is the other thing, right? I mean, I think Stacy talks about there being a threshold like somewhere around 50 megawatts where, you know, you are actually at the scale of a, an individual beaker plant, and that's kind of the that's kind of the hur…”
Frader-Thompson: Regulators rely on one-size-fits-all M&V for flexible resources
“What we don't have in the industry right now is sort of regulatory recognition of those different things. We tend to have kind of a one-size-fits-all M&V approach.”
EnergyHub CEO: Level 4 VPP deployment is a 5-year goal
“So I think level four is, I don't think it's a 10 year goal. I think it's a five year goal.”
Frader-Thompson: Virtual power plants will become continuous 24/7 operational grid resources
“And over time, that kind of creeps you toward what I think will be a 24, seven, three 65 kind of expectations of VPPs.”
Frader-Thompson: Energy efficiency success caused utility load growth planning to atrophy
“We've been so good at energy efficiency over the last two or three decades that a lot of planning teams have not been focused on planning for load growth, and so you're sort of, like, reestablishing a skill that was there And kind of was foundational for a hun…”
Frader-Thompson: EnergyHub deployed ~120MW combining thermostats and batteries
“We just deployed about a 120 megawatts from kind of a traditional thermostat program layering in batteries. So we're sort of stacking up these resources to both firm the resource while growing it.”
Frader-Thompson: VPPs have transitioned to summer and winter peaking resources
“It used to be that VPPs were really kind of like a summer peaking resource, and now they're a summer and winter peaking resource, and that kind of points in the direction that we're all moving.”
Frader-Thompson: Arizona Public Service VPP adoption triples the US national average
“APS is closing in on 10% of their customers participating in these VPP programs, which is like two to three X what we see sort of as a national average.”
Frader-Thompson: Load management buys utilities time to build physical grid infrastructure
“The more you can manage the load profile of this stuff for any number of reasons, the slower you can move in terms of building this stuff out. I think that's really important because sometimes you just literally can't move fast enough.”
Appearances (2)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| Frontier Forum: How VPPs earn grid-scale trust [partner content] | Mar 10, 2026 | 12m |
| Frontier Forum: Why utilities should go big on VPPs | Dec 2, 2024 | 10m |