--- description: Find out why Budderfly Virtual Power Plant is on TIME's list of 2025's best inventions. title: Budderfly Virtual Power Plant: The Best Inventions of 2025 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt197a889d23cd12d2/6998ca3e83ec372801c7afa3/budderfly-virtual-power-plant-TIME-best-inventions-2025.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Oct 09, 2025 # Budderfly Virtual Power Plant Letting small businesses influence the electric grid by [Kali Hays](/author/kali-hays/) ## Kali Hays Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  Courtesy Budderfly It’s easy to think of an electric grid—in a town, county, or entire state—as a monolith. The reality is, a grid represents a dense system of individual users and businesses, each of which has their own energy needs. A typical restaurant uses more energy than an office building. A grocery store uses more energy than a restaurant. But small, local businesses previously lacked a resource to participate in large-scale energy programs. Budderfly’s virtual power plants, piloted in 2024 and launched officially in 2025, let small-to-midsize businesses install the company’s distributed energy resources—like solar panels or electric car chargers—which Budderfly then manages remotely. The grid gains flexibility between different businesses' peak use times, and energy costs go down. These are independent reviews of the products mentioned, but TIME receives a commission when purchases are made through affiliate links at no additional cost to the purchaser. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2025/7318521/budderfly-virtual-power-plant-vpp/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2025/7318521/budderfly-virtual-power-plant-vpp/"},"headline":"Budderfly Virtual Power Plant","datePublished":"2025-10-09T11:00:17.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T11:54:58.665Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2025/7318521/budderfly-virtual-power-plant-vpp/","keywords":["Tech","E-Commerce","list","franchise","Magazine","best inventions","Special Project","sponsorshipblock","Accolades","Best Inventions 2025"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt197a889d23cd12d2/6998ca3e83ec372801c7afa3/budderfly-virtual-power-plant-TIME-best-inventions-2025.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Kali Hays","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/kali-hays/"}],"creator":"Kali Hays","articleSection":"Business","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt197a889d23cd12d2/6998ca3e83ec372801c7afa3/budderfly-virtual-power-plant-TIME-best-inventions-2025.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-tech/","name":"Tech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2025/7318521/budderfly-virtual-power-plant-vpp/","name":"Budderfly Virtual Power Plant"}}]}] ```