Sunrun, Renew Home, and Tesla announced a framework to aggregate 16 gigawatts of flexible energy capacity from home batt
Sunrun Inc., Renew Home, and Tesla announced an agreement to deliver more than 16 gigawatts of flexible energy capacity to hyperscalers and utilities. The agreement establishes a framework for the three companies to aggregate millions of existing demand-side and energy-exporting devices across the country into turnkey local solutions that require no additional hardware, software, interconnection, water, or land usage for customers. The framework is deployable in months rather than years and creates headroom on the existing grid by freeing up transmission capacity, easing congestion on distribution infrastructure, and extending the duration and depth of available capacity while helping American households lower energy bills, earn rewards, and maintain power during outages.
The three companies would form the largest distributed power plant in the country, capable of injecting new electrons onto the grid from home batteries paired with solar generation while simultaneously shifting household load during peak demand hours. The combined 16-gigawatt resource draws dispatchable capacity from hundreds of thousands of home battery systems operated by Sunrun and Tesla, alongside flexible peak capacity from more than 8 million smart thermostats and devices managed by Renew Home.
In Virginia, the heart of Data Center Alley, the companies already have more than 300 megawatts of capacity readily available for immediate deployment. By 2030, that figure is expected to grow to at least 500 megawatts, rivaling some of the largest generation facilities in the state. The companies are capable of building multiple additional gigawatts across the country on a first-come, first-served basis for interested hyperscalers.
The partnership also commits to provide capacity to PJM's proposed Reliability Backstop Process, which could immediately unlock over a gigawatt of capacity for peak shaving, locational grid relief, and fast-responding ancillary services.
According to new analysis from The Brattle Group, better utilization of the existing power grid could reduce U.S. electricity bills by 110 billion to 170 billion dollars over the next decade and accelerate data center interconnection by several years. Sunrun CEO Mary Powell stated that the grid infrastructure of the 1800s cannot power the innovation of 2026, and that the partnership activates resources already present in millions of American homes.