Top Innovators
Kerri Carnes is Director of Customer to Grid Solutions at Arizona Public Service. Blanca Moreno is Supervisor, Program and Portfolio Management at Arizona Public Service. Sarah Noll is Manager VPP Innovation & Strategic Initiatives at Arizona Public Service.
Arizona Public Service won the Fortnightly Top Innovator 2025 award ''Edith Clark Top Innovator in Reliability of Electric Service'' for its Virtual Power Plant Delivering Targeted Grid Support.
PUF's Lori Burkhart: Describe the innovation and its positive impact.
Kerri Carnes: The innovation is the evolution of our virtual power plant and the addition of the capability for locational dispatch events. The addition of this capability is important to APS for a variety of reasons.
As we continue to develop our virtual power plant, and as peak demand continues to rise, we recognize that customer-centered resources like smart thermostats, batteries, and electric vehicles are essential to building a more flexible and responsive energy system.
Last summer, we hit a record peak of eight thousand two hundred ten megawatts as Phoenix temperatures soared to one hundred sixteen degrees. Already in 2025, we've exceeded that peak multiple times by hundreds of megawatts, just for context. These extreme conditions underscore the urgency of expanding our grid's capabilities.
During a severe microburst in the summer of 2024, APS faced significant damage to poles and electrical equipment in the Phoenix area. In response, we activated a targeted conservation event through our customer smart thermostat program, APS Cool Rewards.