Though the Lone Star State is known for its fast interconnection process and abundant sunshine, Texan solar also faces challenges that leave retail-based solar buyback programs as the primary option for homeowners. But a bold new solution to Texas’ solar paradox just came online.
Solrite Energy, a solar and storage financier, and sonnen, a virtual power plant (VPP) and battery storage company, announced today the launch of a virtual power plant power purchase agreement (VPA) in Texas.
Under the VPA, Solrite will install panels and Sonnen Core+20 batteries at eligible households with no upfront costs to customers. The batteries, which will provide up to 60 kWh of capacity, will link into a VPP managed by Sonnen. Enrolled homeowners will pay 12¢ per kWh, compared to the 19¢ to 20¢ per kWh rate common in Texas, for the energy their systems produce.
“This is the first solar offering that doesn’t work against the utility,” Regan George, the CEO of Solrite, told pv magazine USA, noting that unlike a traditional arrangement, the VPA doesn’t require retail electric providers to provide an economic subsidy to homeowners in order to make solar pencil out financially.
“Now, by pairing panels with the Sonnen smart batteries, we can change when we provide clean power to the grid, and we can deliver that energy during peak hours, when utilities actually want to receive it,” he added.
Sonnen and Solrite rolled out their first VPA in California last year in the wake of the state’s controversial net energy metering 3.0 program. However, the VPP could only go so far in California’s semi-regulated electricity market, which limits the types of grid services Sonnen can provide like balancing grid frequencies or regulating voltages.
“We wanted to break free of most of the barriers that exist in America to VPPs and do something that’s more advanced,” Sonnen chairman and CEO Blake Richetta, told pv magazine USA, noting that the company wanted to do so in a deregulated environment. “The best way to achieve that in this country is in Texas…the liberalized market allows for so many things that are not easy to do in any other market, whether that be CAISO, NYISO, or ISO New England.”
Richetta explained that the Texan electricity market can be a difficult place for solar to survive; the state’s low energy costs make it trickier for clean energy to beat out fossil fuel prices.
Still, he added, “If you can do a fully dispatchable, behind-the-meter asset that is swarm-dispatched and can have it deliver true, authentic grid services, then Texas is literally the Wild West of grid services for the United States.”
That approach shaped the VPA’s profit model, which Richetta described as “almost the same as the typical power purchase agreement (PPA) structure you see with Sunrun and Sunnova, but with a new VPP slant.”
Traditional PPAs enable developers to install solar on customer buildings at no cost; customers then pay a fixed electricity rate for the solar generated. Solrite’s VPA structure builds on that foundation by adding a new revenue stream from the VPP, which is made possible through Sonnen’s tech stack.
That additional cash flow enables Solrite to charge customers much lower rates than a traditional PPA despite paying for solar panels, installers and other contractors, and Sonnen’s batteries.
“Texas allows for many more grid services than California, meaning we’re able to generate more revenue and maximize the usage and capabilities of the Sonnen batteries,” George said. “In turn, that lets us offer an economic solution to homeowners that’s unparalleled — the solar and storage becomes a cost-saver compared to having no clean energy at their homes.”
The benefits of the VPA were also particularly attractive to Texan homeowners, many of whom spent days without power during a brutal storm. At that time, solar in the state relied almost exclusively on solar without attached battery storage, George explained, meaning that the systems offered little value during grid outages.
The partnership’s offering aims to change that.
When power is on, Sonnen says the VPP flexes its smart batteries to provide grid services and strengthen the grid, making it less likely that power will go out in the first place. The more homes enrolled in the program in one area, the smaller the chance of an outage becomes.
If power does go out, the batteries become backup power.
“The whole point of a VPP, and the reason why ERCOT and other retail electric providers are so supportive of our program, is that it provides on-site grid services that can strengthen against future outages,” George said.
To date, the VPA has connected over 1,000 homes in Texas to the grid, with hundreds more enrolled in the program and waiting for the systems to be installed. In 2025, Regan noted that the partnership expects to scale up their program installations by at least 5x compared to 2024.
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