Our planet has natural assets like oceans, forests, soil, and mangroves that absorb carbon from the atmosphere and regulate Earth's temperature. These are also known as carbon sinks. 

But nature is struggling to keep up with humanity's rising amount of carbon pollution. And practices like deforestation are weakening nature's ability to store some of this pollution. 

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) uses nature or machines to absorb carbon pollution either from a source on the ground, like a methane gas production facility, or from the atmosphere itself.

A Virtual Power Plant (VPP) pulls together energy from smaller-scale sources of energy — like rooftop solar, wind turbines, and residential electricity storage batteries — and combines it to create a larger clean energy network that can supply power to customers 24/7, explains Aurora Solar.

VPPs use software, which acts like a control room of a traditional power plant, to accomplish this. Read more on how.