Sunrun and Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) are partnering for a seasonal virtual power plant (VPP) to help balance California’s grid during peak times.
The program will provide load relief to neighborhoods with highly constrained electric grids using excess energy generated and sold from homes with Sunrun solar-plus-storage installations.
A VPP is a virtual aggregation of small-scale, distributed energy resources. Along with energy storage, VPPs include including vehicle chargers and demand-responsive devices such as water heaters, thermostats and appliances.
The program will run for up to 100 hours from June through October and include about 600 Sunrun customers within PG&E’s service area. The program provides participants with a $750 upfront payment and a free smart thermostat.
Sunrun said the VPP partnership will support the development of new long-term programs to meet the California Energy Commission’s load-shifting goals, while also enhancing local reliability.
“Customers with home batteries are a solution to alleviating strain on our electric grid,” said Mary Powell, the CEO of Sunrun. “We’re experiencing a fundamental shift as homes are no longer just energy consumers. With storage and solar,” she said, “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) VPP. Sunrun, which will operate the program, said it will receive information from PG&E on distribution grid needs and help PG&E analyze the contributions of distributed energy resources. Sunrun will determine the optimal times using Lunar Energy’s Gridshare platform for non-Tesla batteries and Tesla’s grid services platform for Powerwall batteries.
VPP technology has shown promise in replacing natural-gas peaker plants on grids, offering additional capacity during times of peak electricity demand, all while saving costs for ratepayers. The swing in demand for electricity from conventional power plants from midday to late evenings, when energy demand is still high but solar generation has dropped off, means that conventional power plants like natural gas-fired peaker plants must rapidly ramp up electricity production to meet demand. Coordinated VPP programs such as PG&E’s SAVE VPP can help serve this demand, lessening the need for inefficient natural gas peaker plants.
“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.
According to Sunrun, the company has 156,000 residential battery systems in the United States.
The previous administration’s head of Department of Energy Loans Programs Office, Jigar Shah, was a strong supporter of VPP buildout. pv magazine USA interviewed Shah on the benefits of VPPs.
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