Will Power Plants Move into the Cloud?

A virtual power plant could manage and distribute power between houses — protecting communities from outages during a crisis.

Hannah Beal had been wanting to move to the Rocky Mountains for years. Denver was too crowded for her liking, and access to hiking trails and skiing was becoming a long, congested drive.

So when she landed a job as a secretary at Carbondale Middle School, 150 miles west of the city, she, her husband, and her nine-year-old son packed their bags and hit the road. They never planned to move into a living laboratory that proponents are calling “the future of energy.”