Filling in the Blanks: Reflections on the Opacity and Visibility of Virtual Power Plants in Online Representations

^{Jill Röbenack & Mallory James}

Introduction: Opacity and Intermediaries

Some energy infrastructures—such as nuclear cooling towers, dams, and transmission lines—are iconic, culturally visible, and invested with moral meanings (Féaux de la Croix, 2016; Müller, 2026). But day-to-day energy use in Europe also draws on visually-obscured elements, including buried pipes and wires, fenced transformer stations, proprietary software, and closed-door management decisions. Hence, even socially-legible ‘energy objects‘ such as transmission towers are tied to deliberate trails and lines of infrastructural connectivity that escape phenomenological engagement (Anusas and Ingold, 2015). Trying to see energy ‘at the citizen level‘ in daily life, what comes to mind are closed cabinets, fenced sites, and vans and power bills emblazoned with specific logos. Some forms of opacity are even deliberately produced and sustained: in North America, concepts of “energy security” participate in a political logic that hides electric energy infrastructure from public view: the argument is that for the collective good, access to knowledge of grid systems must be strictly limited (Özden-Schilling, 2024). In Australia, just over the horizon from shoreline view, disused oil rigs are rusting, awaiting government and corporate decisions regarding whether and how to remove them (Maritime Union of Australia, 2026). Energy infrastructures thereby undergo a blend of accidental and deliberate opacity in visible, public life. 

In order to support improved democratization and just outcomes in the design and use of energy systems, societies must rise to the challenge of making energy systems knowable. To increase participation and just outcomes in their design and use, energy systems could become more knowable in their various dimensions. Phenomenological absence, for example, limits one form of public knowability, constraining political intervention against environmentally damaging practices (Mason 2026). As authors of this blog, we acknowledge that technologically, socially, and ecologically complex infrastructures requires the expertise of intermediaries to be understood and made visible. But who are these intermediaries? And what else takes place, culturally speaking, as they make energy infrastructure visible and visualizable in graphics, photos, diagrams, and infographics? 

In the case of “Virtual Power Plants” (VPPs), the intermediaries include established and new companies who work with software to connect multiple Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) together and manage their collective integration into a wider grid. Because DERs are renewable sources, VPPs have a growing role in Europe along with the growth of renewable energy and multidimensional project of ‘digitalization‘ for government-related goods and services. Although VPP companies may set up a website primarily to explicate their specific products and services, the fact that they are agents in the renewable energy sector expands their authority into the terrain of shaping how energy is understood and imagined. Websites, furthermore, are ephemera, potentially subject to frequent redesigns as style trends and browser settings continuously move—which raises their importance as the footprint of a cultural logic of energy with connotations of democratization and participation. This post partly analyzes three such websites for VPP corporations and technologies for the question of how knowledge about energy and electricity is visually constructed, focusing on selected visual elements with an eye to the design and narrative strategies that the corporate intermediaries employ. 

How Should We Picture a Virtual Power Plant?

Beginning with the most visually simple of the three websites: a medium-sized company with the tagline “The Power of Many” shares a schematic, graphically-designed image at the center right of its website homepage (where visitors land first) (Figure 1). On a white background, the left half of the image gives the headline “The Virtual Power Plant for a New Energy World” and the explanatory subtitle “Next Kraftwerke operates one of Europe’s largest virtual power plants, in which electricity producers, consumers, and storage systems are intelligently networked—with tangible benefits for everyone.” On the right side of the website is a graphic representation of a prototypical virtual power plant:

_{Figure 1: A VPP ‘for a new energy world‘ (‚für eine neue Energiewelt‘). Source: https://www.next-kraftwerke.de/ Image accessed on 15 July 2026.}

The visualized infrastructure is organized in a six-pointed star shape; electricity-generating technologies that appear to be solar, hydro, wind, a battery park, biomass, and two other boxy ones that may be gas and coal, converge centrally in a flat box bearing the corporate logo, which evokes Tangram tiles (Figure 2), a child‘s puzzle with seven separable pieces that can be replaced in different shapes. The graphic is rendered in the company’s colors: light green, white, and grayscale. Green lines connect from the ‘sources‘ to the center, and fill the spaces of the logo, thus evoking electricity. Only the blue water of the ‘hydro‘ icon departs from the scheme. 

The depicted infrastructure appears independent of human presence and without being embedded in a physical landscape. The energy world thus remains self-contained, both spatially and socially. Human labor, maintenance, waste, risk, and sources of error are no longer visible. The algorithm within the central box functions as the central controlling authority and promises an automated, simplified future in which humans do not appear as active agents or even in any way involved with the energy sources shown. Such aesthetics of order, cleanliness, and structural clarity can be read as an idealization of technical systems. 

As known from other studies of visual design, a website’s color scheme can trigger emotional, non-cognitive reactions (Atukunda, 2025, 59). As the dominant brand color, light green has a particularly strong impact against the white background when combined with subdued shades of gray. It evokes associations with freshness and nature. In the context of a renewable energy website, this color choice can be directly linked to sustainability. In conjunction with the phrase “tangible benefits for everyone,” it also evokes a shared responsibility for the future of energy. However, neither sustainability nor community are explicitly addressed: there is no theory of the meaning of either concept presented on the website (though, if readers desire, they can submit their email addresses through a webform in order to receive a glossary of technical and legal energy terms). This absence invites visitors to supplement the company‘s storytelling with their own ideas about community and sustainability (Paliwoda-Matiolańska & Nakayama, 2024, 3). If the site’s contents are taken literally, then the “everyone” referred to is in practice, limited, since the offerings are primarily aimed at commercial actors rather than end consumers. The term “tangible” thus refers less to a future oriented toward the common good and energy equity than to the economic advantages and profit interests of fellow corporations. Here, sustainability appears to be implicitly linked to inter-corporate trade. This shifts the focus to the question of responsibility and participation: Who is conceived as the intended subject in this vision of this future? Who bears responsibility for the outcomes of using a VPP, and what are the targets of care and concern they will prioritize while using it? Perhaps other presentations of VPPs hold some answers. 

Landscape as Asset List

The second VPP company website offers increased social and geographical specificity compared to the first. A subsidiary firm of one of the biggest and most established energy corporations in Germany based in Karlsruhe, primarily working to buy and sell electricity between privately-owned generation projects and the German electricity market, has designed their corporate homepage to center upon a large composite photograph. The image looks slightly down and across a vast, predominantly agricultural European landscape bathed in pink twilight. Large fields of rapeseed and grain fill the center and share space with dark green forests to the horizon, while dense blue PV panels fill the foreground behind a veil of pink mist, evoking late spring or summer. Wind turbines are scattered throughout the landscape, along with subtle evidence of roads, a settlement, and rolling hills. In the foreground, a hand—portrayed as male and in a casual sweater—is seen holding a tablet. The screen displays a digital portal for the direct marketing of electricity, which includes, among other things, contract documents, information on kilowatt generation, and the number of installations: “Meine Anlagen” (‘My Facilities’/ ‘My Assets’). Arches of light run between the tablet and individual wind turbines, glowing at their points of interconnection. Atop this image, and fairly central to the page, is a button labeled “Calculate Yield Potential.” 

_{Figure 3: Opportunities to manage energy assets, made available by a VPP and electricity sales company. Source: https://www.interconnector.de/direktvermarktung-strom/ Image accessed on 15 July 2026.}

The arcs of light running between the tablet and the power generation facilities seem to visualize either digital connectivity, or the collection of financialized energy flows, or both. They trace the connection of decentralized generation facilities into an integrated system. In contrast to the first VPP image, this story of digital and electric interconnection has a real-world context, here characterized by farmland, wind turbines, and solar panels. The atmospheric light of dawn (or dusk) frames the scene, and with the richness of the summer season, it seems to convey a change in time: perhaps a hinge point towards a promising future, either of a harvest, or of a summer’s day, or both. The warm, rising light creates a positive overall mood that signals optimism and confidence in the future—one that is not distant concept, but instead laid out on the landscape below a vantage point. In contrast to the highly abstracted presentation in green, gray, and white discussed above, this image is noteworthy for suggesting a role for at least one human character in relation to the technology and landscape. 

Specifically, the tablet-holding hands serve as the central visual element and symbolize control, autonomy, and financialized ownership. Energy accounting upon a tablet implies mastery of complex processes by their downscaling into digital text. Following Flusser (1993, 81), we can understand these hands as a metaphor for the domestication of an ‘unthing’ (Unding): through the company’s role as mediator, complicated world of renewable energy becomes tangible and concrete. The hand used to explore and shape this world is the link between the digital and the analog, through which the abstract becomes concrete (Doane, 2007, 142). The composed image of agrivoltaics, wind, and touchscreen-based software present an interplay between human control, digitalization, and green energy generation. Looking over this man’s shoulder—or are these meant to be the viewer‘s hands?—suggests that while working with the VPP and its company, carefully guided exploration of new horizons alongside a knowledgeable partner. Perhaps some viewers already see the hands as their own, whereas other viewers experience themselves as watching a man manage his property. 

Envisioning the Future - from Behind Glass

Thirdly, it is possible to dwell for a moment upon what comes to count as knowledgeability and intellectual leadership in relation to virtual power plants. A European company based in Munich and describing themselves as managing Europe’s largest VPP attempts to present a rather unconventional and forward-looking image of itself. On their home page—not front and center but instead partway down the landing site—the corporation’s employees offer a photograph of a group of themselves in a meeting. The photo floats on a black framing ground and is labeled “Brilliant minds behind” in white, also sporting a white call-to-action button labeled “About the team.” A group of men—all white and no older than middle age—are dressed in casual attire, including T-shirts, turtlenecks, and shirts in white, black, and blue. One man stands in the foreground, while the others are gathered closely around a table. On the table are several laptops, a glass of water, and a croissant. One person is typing on a laptop, while the others also appear to be busy. None of the people present are looking at the camera. The scene gives the impression of a rather informal gathering. The photograph appears to have been taken through a glass pane: reflections are visible, but also, we’re looking again over someone’s shoulder. The colors appear slightly washed out and are overlaid with subtle lighting effects. Indeed, warm yellow light and heat appear to be radiating up from the bottom edge. 

_{Figure 4: An invitation to learn about the members of the company that presents itself as offering “Europe‘s Largest Power Plant” (Faces blurred by blog authors). Source: https://www.flexa.energy  Image accessed on 15 July 2026.}

At first glance, the image conveys a modern, collaborative work atmosphere. The people are seated in a relaxed arrangement around a table, with no discernible formal hierarchies, suggesting an informal, possibly agile way of working. An open laptop with visible data in the foreground points to a project- and data-oriented work context. The attention of those present seems to be focused on a person in the foreground who is acting as a moderator or presenter. By looking through the glass pane, the viewer assumes an observational perspective. This creates the impression of an authentic, candid moment. A deliberate depth of field directs the viewer’s gaze toward the activity at the table, while elements in the foreground remain out of focus. The warm, diffused light contributes to an open and friendly atmosphere. The clothing of those present is predominantly casual and befits an informal yet professional context, as is often associated with technology-oriented or creative work environments. Their focused facial expressions and body postures suggest collaborative work and exchange. 

Considered more closely, the image can be interpreted as a representation of distance and exclusion. The glass pane functions as a visual barrier that marks a clear separation between the people depicted and the viewer’s position. Despite its transparency, it creates the impression of a boundary; the events are visible but remain inaccessible. The perspective positions the viewer outside the space where interaction and decision-making processes take place, with no visible possibility of entry, thereby pointing to a potential asymmetry between the inside and the outside. At the same time, the image depicts a strikingly homogeneous group of people. It features exclusively white, younger men, leaving other social and marginalized groups—such as women, people of color or older people—unrepresented. This visual homogeneity can be interpreted as an indication of limited diversity and points to structural patterns that are frequently problematized in contemporary work contexts, especially in the technology and startup sectors. In the context of its use on the company’s website, such a depiction can create implicit notions of specificity related to possibilities of belonging and partnership, by suggesting which groups of people are addressed or targeted to participate in VPPs through their mediation. The caption “brilliant minds behind – about the team” reinforces this interpretation. In male-dominated industries such as technology, IT, or finance, a homogeneous environment is often perceived as a neutral standard, the default. This normalization can lead to existing exclusions not being recognized and problematized as such. At the same time, the phrase “brilliant minds” evokes historically entrenched notions of natural-scientific genius, which in Western contexts have long been associated primarily with white men (Wertheim, 1997; Noble, 2013). In combination with the group of people depicted, this attribution is visually confirmed and perpetuated. The choice of images also appears to be strongly aesthetically motivated. Elements such as lighting, reflections, and a documentary-style approach create an impression of authenticity and immediacy. By contrast, the associated meanings—such as the distance created by the glass pane or questions of representation—take a back seat. In the combination of image and text, the message shifts from a demonstration of professional competence to an implicit definition of what “brilliant minds” look like. This can create the impression that innovative ability and expertise are tied to a narrowly defined, socially homogeneous demographic group.

According to media theorists in website design, the dominant visual narrative on the main landing page of a website can be termed “the hero section.” It often represents the first point of contact between potential customers and a company and significantly shapes the tone of the rest of a website’s content (Hahn, 2025). Hero sections typically consists of a “hero claim,” through which a company concisely articulates its core message (Bauer & Jestaedt, 2020, 4), as well as a key visual that serves as a visual frame of reference for communication, corporate values, and identity (Richter, 2022). While spatially speaking, the boardroom image is not exactly located on the hero section of the website, the two other images studied above actually are. In our opinion, dwelling upon the boardroom image is a useful supplement to the prior “hero claims” above that were completely technology-centric in the first case, and arguably centered upon asset ownership and value extraction in the second case. 

From the perspective of media and cultural studies, one might hope that the images were selected without any explicit intended message. Yet this is precisely where their significance lies—they can be read as examples of implicit assumptions and habitual patterns of perception that are not consciously reflected upon. The visual presentation thus points to a possible lack of awareness of the issues involved in dealing with representation and privilege. 

Conclusion: Inviting Meanings and Shaping Futures

The pictures of VPPs range between a schematic, even blueprint-like sketch that empties humans from the scene, to two other more composed images that bring humans and their spatial situatedness at least partially into the frame. In the first, the absence of any specific users or residents allows readers to fill in the white space, so to speak, with their preexisting notions of who should use a VPP system and to what end(s). Tthe second example proposes a future of renewable energy as a range of assets, managed and mastered through digital dashboards and financial calculations, again inviting (certain) viewers to imagine themselves as competent owners rather than as citizens or workers. As work on sustainability framing shows, such open‑ended presentation can function as a flexible visual and rhetorical resource, aligning corporate interests with positive visions of a green future while carefully decoupling responsibility for climate impacts.  Ultimately, each presentation of VPPs must make a choice between leaving the expected usefulness of a VPP ambiguous, versus proposing a possible modality of usefulness, and answering the question of who it is useful for. Unfortunately, as the third (boardroom) image shows, increasing the clarity with which the expected VPP users are portrayed can accidentally reveal the specificity of who is expected to be either creating or interacting with VPPs. The comfort of social similarity, demographic comparability, and the presumably cross-cutting financialized interest infrastructure as a value generator is available to link certain viewers closer into affinity with the portrayed characters (the iPad holder and the boardroom meeting participants), naturalizing a narrow demographic group as the default subject of expertise and innovation. A wider array of relationships with energy, and a wider array of knowledge of energy, seem not to appear in the presentation of the VPPs, unless a website visitor arrives with a deliberately divergent imagination of ownership, benefit, and sustainability and can remain interested in all of these perspectives even without seeing them reflected back in the given imagery. 

Taken as a whole, these images and slogans serve not only to inform; they subtly define who is perceived as a key player in the energy transition—and under what conditions. It is precisely the opacity and selectivity of their narratives—what is shown and what remains unsaid—that creates a space in which corporate actors quietly steer the visualization and thereby the meaning around the tropes of energy, community, and sustainability, while simultaneously inviting the public to fill in the gaps in the story in a way that is unlikely to challenge the underlying structures of ownership and privilege.