Forty homes in the village of Oxspring in Northern England will be networked together to form a virtual power plant (VPP) using solar and batteries. The trials will use 40 batteries from Moixa, with rooftop solar panels installed on 30 of the homes to create a VPP to cut customer bills and improve operator efficiency. Solar panels have historically caused problems for operators, producing peak power during the middle of the day when residential energy usage is low. During periods of low energy demand the energy being sent to the substation by solar panels is often wasted. The VPP project aims to store this excess power, for use when the solar production has fallen – chiefly in the evenings and…