Virtual power plant (VPP) platform profile
Sunrun: the largest residential battery VPP fleet
How Sunrun enrolls about 107,000 customers, why it hit a 745 MW record in October 2026, and how its Texas and data center deals work.
VPP Economics has no affiliation with, sponsorship from, or endorsement by any utility, aggregator, platform, or device maker named here.
The short answer
- Sunrun runs the largest residential battery virtual power plant (VPP) fleet in the U.S. It has installed more than 237,000 solar and storage systems with about 4.0 GWh of networked storage (Sunrun’s 2025 annual report).
- About 107,000 customers are enrolled across 18 programs, as of the end of Q1 2026 (Sunrun). In 2025 the fleet dispatched nearly 18 GWh, with a peak of 429 MW (Sunrun).
- Its October 2026 dispatch set a record. Batteries delivered 745 MW to California’s grid on October 6, triggered after day-ahead prices passed $200/MWh (TradingView).
- Ownership is the key. Because Sunrun owns or leases many of the systems, it can enroll them at scale and decide how to share program pay; CalReady pays $50–$150 per battery a year (Sunrun).
Where Sunrun fits
Highlighted boxes are the roles this company plays; the green bar shows where its programs sit from demand response to an orchestrated VPP.
Swipe to see the full chart →
How Sunrun’s VPPs work
Sunrun installs solar and batteries, often under leases or power purchase agreements, so it keeps control of the system and the right to enroll it in grid programs. Customer participation grew from about 20,000 in 2024 to more than 106,000 by the end of 2025 (Sunrun). Lunar’s Gridshare software runs many of its programs (Lunar Energy), and Sunrun’s Tesla Powerwalls are also dispatched through Tesla.
In California, Sunrun reported more than 80,000 households and 110,000 batteries enrolled for summer 2026, with 425 MW of peak dispatchable capacity (Energy-Storage.news). CalReady keeps a 20% reserve in each battery for outages (Sunrun).
Sunrun peak dispatch
Megawatts (MW) delivered at peak, by event or measure
Swipe to see the full chart →
Price-triggered dispatch
The October events were dispatched when day-ahead wholesale prices topped $200/MWh, or 20 cents per kWh (TradingView). That makes them closer to an orchestrated VPP answering a price signal than a once-a-season emergency call. At 745 MW for one hour, the energy alone is worth about $149,000 at $200/MWh; most program value still comes from capacity payments, not that energy.
Texas and data centers
In Texas, Sunrun and NRG signed a multi-year deal in December 2025 to pair Sunrun systems with Reliant retail plans. NRG pays Sunrun for aggregating the capacity, Sunrun pays participating customers, and the capacity counts toward NRG’s goal of a 1 GW VPP by 2035 (Sunrun).
In June 2026 Sunrun, Tesla and Renew Home (now Everyday Electric) offered 16.8 GW of combined capacity to utilities and data center owners, including roughly 4.7 GW in California, 1.7 GW in Texas and 1 GW in Illinois and Ohio for about two hours, plus more than 300 MW ready in Virginia (Canary Media). Those figures add up rated battery output and thermostat load shifting; they are not firm capacity.
What it means for program design
One counterparty, many homes
An owner-operator can enroll tens of thousands of systems at once, which shortens the ramp of a new program.
Who gets the payment?
When Sunrun owns the system, it sets the household’s share; program design should say how much reaches customers.
Price triggers raise dispatch counts
Dispatching at a day-ahead price threshold means more events per season, so battery wear and reserve rules matter.
Method and caveats
Figures are company-reported, from Sunrun’s annual report or from trade press, checked October 16, 2026. The September 9 total is a combined Sunrun and Tesla event; October totals are Sunrun-reported and include Powerwalls. The $149,000 energy value is VPP Economics arithmetic (745 MW × 1 hour × $200/MWh) and is illustrative only.