The power grid has a data center problem. AI companies are hungry for electricity, interconnection queues stretch for years, and traditional utility buildout moves at the speed of permitting paperwork. Sunrun thinks the answer might be sitting on suburban rooftops.
The residential solar company is working with Tesla and Renew Home to aggregate home solar and battery systems into virtual power plants, or VPPs, networks of behind-the-meter devices that can behave like a single, dispatchable power source.
What a virtual power plant actually is
Instead of one giant power plant, you coordinate thousands of home batteries to discharge simultaneously when the grid needs it. The homeowner gets bill credits or payments. The grid gets relief.
Sunrun reported a more than 400% year-over-year increase in VPP enrollments in 2024, reaching over 106,000 customers. The company’s VPP peaked at nearly 80 MW of instantaneous capacity in 2024, with total dispatch reaching 416 MW during one recent period. For context, a single large natural gas peaker plant typically runs between 100 and 500 MW.
