“Virtual powerplant” still has its place. But for customers, partners and investors trying to understand how value is actually created, the better term is increasingly market orchestration.

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In May 2023, PowerSync published “Say what you mean – not ‘Virtual Power Plant’!” The core point was simple: VPP had become a catch-all term applied to very different technologies, business models and use cases, often creating more confusion than clarity. That argument still stands. PowerSync’s earlier article noted there was no universally accepted definition of the term and that it was being used across widely varying systems and objectives.

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Current market sources show exactly why that matters. AEMO says a VPP “broadly refers” to an aggregation of decentralised generation, storage and controllable loads coordinated to deliver services for power system operations and electricity markets. By contrast, the Clean Energy Regulator’s consumer-facing explanation describes a VPP as a network of small distributed energy resources such as solar batteries linked and controlled by smart software. Both are valid in context, but together they show how broad the term has become. In one setting it can include flexible load and market services; in another it is effectively shorthand for household battery participation.

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Breadth of the VPP concept delivers a lack of clarity

If a term can mean residential batteries, flexible load orchestration, FCAS aggregation, network support, or a software wrapper around DER control, it stops telling customers what the platform actually does. It becomes a label, not an explanation. And as the market matures, that is no longer enough. More customers now want to know how assets are forecast, how dispatch decisions are made, how flexibility is monetised, and how market participation is managed in practice. This is an inference from the contrast between current public definitions of VPP and the more operational language now being used in market and policy documents.

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Market orchestration delivers a precise commercial model

The shift is already visible in the market. In Western Australia, government policy work is framed around DER orchestration roles and responsibilities, including the Distribution System Operator, Distribution Market Operator and DER Aggregator functions, and explicitly covers future participation in the Wholesale Electricity Market of rooftop solar, batteries and manageable loads such as hot water systems, air-conditioning and EV chargers. That is a much more precise description of the challenge than “VPP.” It focuses on the roles, the coordination layer and the pathway into market participation.

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Networks are using the same language. Energex’s 2025-26 Demand Management Plan identifies Customer Enablement, Market Orchestration and Network Management as its three strategic pillars for demand flexibility. It defines Market Orchestration as the way networks partner with market providers to procure flexible load and generation to address localised network demand events, and it is adding an Aggregated Demand Response Program under that pillar. That is not generic VPP language. It is targeted language about procuring flexibility and coordinating it through market partners.

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The broader industry is moving the same way. EY argued in 2024 that the next step for Australia is not simply to install more DER, but to maximise the utility and value of customer-owned assets “through orchestration.” That wording matters. It points to the real commercial outcome: not just connecting devices, but coordinating them in a way that creates system value and customer value at the same time.

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This matters even more because the future market is becoming more structured, more interoperable and more data-driven. AEMO’s CER Data Exchange work is explicitly focused on standardised APIs, schema standardisation, linkage to compliance registers, interoperability standards, historical logs and even predictive compliance capabilities. In other words, the market is moving toward an operating environment where successful participation depends on coordinated data, coordinated controls and coordinated market response. That is much closer to orchestration than to the loose consumer shorthand of VPP.

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For PowerSync, that is why market orchestration is the better term in most commercial contexts.

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It describes what the platform is actually doing: forecasting site capability and market conditions, coordinating batteries, flexible loads and embedded generation, bidding compliantly into energy and system-service markets, and turning physical flexibility into revenue.

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If the objective is to explain a household battery program to consumers, VPP may still be a useful umbrella term. But if the objective is to explain how a serious market-facing platform creates value for C&I customers, utilities, networks or investors, the better language is market orchestration. It is clearer about the mechanism, clearer about the commercial model and clearer about the value stack. This conclusion is an inference from the way official and industry sources now distinguish broad VPP concepts from more specific orchestration and demand-flexibility frameworks.

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The market is not just aggregating assets anymore. It is orchestrating them and that is the language that better matches where the energy system is heading next.

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Contact PowerSync Technologies today to explore how market orchestration can help your batteries, flexible loads and embedded generation unlock compliant, auditable and long-term value in the energy market.

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