California Senator Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park) has introduced legislation aimed at integrating customer-owned energy resources into the state’s grid as a formal reliability tool.
The bill, SB 913, would require the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to update its Resource Adequacy (RA) rules to allow aggregated distributed energy resources (DERs), including home batteries, electric vehicles, and smart thermostats, to compete alongside traditional power plants. Proponents argue the measure could lower ratepayer costs by reducing the state’s reliance on expensive gas peaker plants during periods of high demand.
California is currently sitting on a massive, underutilized reservoir of clean energy capacity located behind the meter. While the state has successfully deployed over 1,000 MW of capacity through the Demand Side Grid Support (DSGS) program, millions of additional customer-owned devices remain sidelined by restrictive market rules.
SB 913 seeks to bridge this gap by streamlining how these local assets are measured, compensated, and dispatched.
“Instead of always building expensive new infrastructure to meet just a few peak hours of demand, we should be making better use of the resources we already have in our homes,” said Senator Becker. “SB 913 ensures we can use those resources to lower costs, reduce pollution, and improve reliability.”
Under current CPUC regulations, traditional large-scale power plants are the primary beneficiaries of Resource Adequacy (RA) payments. RA payments are fees utilities pay plant operators to ensure enough power is available to prevent blackouts.
DERs have historically had restricted access to the RA market. Complex enrollment processes and rules that do not account for the unique operational profiles of residential batteries or bi-directional EV charging remain barriers to entry.
The bill would mandate a level playing field for these resources. By allowing performance to be measured at the individual device level and simplifying multi-device enrollment, the legislation aims to turn the state’s growing fleet of residential storage into a cohesive Virtual Power Plant (VPP).
This shift is particularly critical as California transitions away from NEM 2.0 toward the net billing tariff (NBT), which has already incentivized a higher attachment rate for home batteries.
One of the most significant provisions of SB 913 is the explicit requirement to compensate customers for energy exported back to the grid during peak events. Current demand response programs often focus on load shedding, simply turning things off, rather than load shifting or active injection.
By allowing home batteries and EVs to discharge into the grid when the system is most stressed, the state can defer the need for multi-billion dollar transmission upgrades. Analysts note that the grid reaches its absolute peak demand for only a few hundred hours each year. Tapping into distributed storage during these windows offers a lower-cost alternative to maintaining aging fossil fuel assets that otherwise sit idle.
The legislative push comes as California grapples with some of the highest electricity rates in the country, driven largely by massive utility investments in transmission and wildfire mitigation.
SB 913 is positioned as a grid solution that leverages capital already invested by private citizens.
“California has spent years incentivizing and encouraging consumers to invest in distributed energy resources such as EV chargers, smart thermostats, rooftop solar and batteries to reduce their energy demand across the state, but our policies still undervalue how these resources can be part of the solution to the energy affordability crisis,” said Brandon García, California Director at Advanced Energy United. “SB 913 will allow these local resources to compete in the marketplace so they can reach their full value for the reliability they provide.”
“California has a choice: we can continue to build our way out of the problem at great cost, or we can use the capacity we already have more efficiently,” Becker added.
The bill has been referred to the Senate Energy, Utilities, and Communications Committee. For the solar and storage industry, the bill could unlock new revenue streams for installers and aggregators, further bolstering the business case for residential electrification.
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