**Voltus** is a demand-response and distributed energy resources (DER) company that turns flexibility into revenue—paying businesses to dial down power use when the grid strains. As data centers devour electricity across markets like PJM, Voltus sits at the center of a quiet revolution: capacity no longer has to come only from power plants, but from thousands of thermostats, batteries, and factories humming in coordination. The company's voice carries weight in that conversation. CEO Dana Guernsey recently framed Google's virtual power plant in PJM—and its "bring your own new capacity" contracts—as potentially transformative, likening the structure to the PPAs that unlocked utility-scale solar and wind. That endorsement lands amid a wave of momentum: Tesla, Sunrun, and Renew Home planning a 16-gigawatt virtual power plant, and New Jersey letting data centers fund home energy upgrades to secure grid capacity. But friction remains. PJM utilities' reluctance to share smart-meter data is blocking third-party demand-response programs, risking gigawatts of capacity and slowing players like Voltus. Watch for data-access rule changes and BYONC-style contracts becoming standard—both could dramatically expand Voltus's addressable market.