Sunrun Inc has achieved a significant milestone by linking over 16,200 solar-plus-storage systems belonging to its California customers into what it asserts is the largest virtual power plant in the United States.
The newly established CalReady virtual power plant is set to play a pivotal role in California’s Demand Side Grid Support program, designed to alleviate strain on the state’s grid during peak demand periods and extreme weather events, Sunrun announced.
Operating daily from 1600 to 2100 local time between May and October, the Sunrun network aims to provide critical energy support during the summer months when the grid faces heightened vulnerability to outages due to increased demand. Customers participating in the program will receive compensation for their contribution, while ensuring their batteries maintain a minimum 20% backup reserve for household use during outages.
Chris Rauscher, Sunrun’s Head of Grid Services, highlighted the significance of the company’s extensive fleet of batteries, emphasizing, “The benefit of Sunrun’s fleet of many thousand batteries is that they can be orchestrated in unison. It’s the scale, speed and capacity that makes Sunrun’s virtual power plants so valuable.”
In a notable achievement last year, Sunrun supplied Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) with up to 32 MW of power during peak summer evening hours from 8,500 customer batteries. The residential solar and storage provider anticipates doubling both capacity and participant numbers for the Demand Side Grid Support program this summer, reflecting its commitment to bolstering grid resilience and sustainability.
