Sunrun has announced a new VPP partnership with California’s largest utility, PG&E. The collaboration will utilize hundreds of Sunrun solar + storage customer homes to deliver targeted load relief to neighborhoods identified with highly constrained electric grids. The goal of this approach is to help avoid or defer growth-related distribution investments, reducing costs for ratepayers.
The Sunrun-operated program will be activated for up to 100 hours from June through October and include approximately 600 Sunrun customers residing in sections of PG&E’s service area that are experiencing distribution circuit constraints.
“Customers with home batteries are a solution to alleviating strain on our electric grid,” said Sunrun CEO Mary Powell. “We’re experiencing a fundamental shift as homes are no longer just energy consumers. With storage and solar, they become powerful grid assets, delivering affordable, reliable power exactly when and where it’s needed for communities and across the grid.”
Sunrun’s Local PeakShift Power program is part of PG&E’s 2025 Seasonal Aggregation of Versatile Energy (SAVE) virtual power plant. In this demonstration, Sunrun will receive information from PG&E on distribution grid needs and, in turn, help PG&E analyze the contributions of distributed energy resources. This collaboration will support the development of new long-term programs to meet the California Energy Commission’s load-shifting goals, while also enhancing local reliability.
“Virtual power plants play a significant role in California’s clean energy future and we’re proud of our customers who are leading the charge with their clean energy adoption. Every day, we’re looking at new and better ways to deliver for our hometowns while ensuring safety, reliability and resiliency for our customers,” said Patti Poppe, CEO of PG&E Corporation.
The delivery of targeted power to local PG&E circuits will leverage Sunrun’s deep existing partnerships with leading companies Tesla and Lunar Energy. Sunrun will use an advanced application of Tesla’s grid services platform to optimize Powerwall batteries to provide an exact amount of power at specific times to different locations. Similarly, Sunrun will leverage Lunar Energy’s AI-enabled forecasting through its Gridshare software platform to precisely dispatch various non-Tesla battery types to meet local grid needs.
This collaboration marks the second time Sunrun and PG&E have partnered to create a virtual power plant to support California’s power grid. Both partnerships highlight Sunrun’s ability to design and rapidly deploy virtual power plants that meet the specific needs of grid operators. Local PeakShift Power will be operationalized in just months, demonstrating the speed and efficiency of Sunrun’s virtual power plant capabilities.
Sunrun customers enrolled in Local PeakShift Power will receive a one-time payment of $150 per battery for sharing their stored solar energy with their communities, while Sunrun will be compensated for managing battery dispatches. Enrolled batteries will always retain at least a 20% backup reserve to ensure power availability at customers’ homes in the event of a power outage.
With 156,000 residential battery systems across the country, Sunrun can support targeted utility initiatives and statewide virtual power plant programs. Sunrun’s grid services platform and subscription model allow for flexibility when it comes to enrolling customers in different programs in order to achieve the highest value for the company, its customers, and the grid.
News item from Sunrun
