Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) has joined Sunrun and Renew Home in an agreement to deliver more than 16 gigawatts of flexible energy capacity to hyperscalers and utilities.
The agreement sets out a framework to aggregate millions of existing demand-side and energy-exporting devices across the US into local turnkey solutions. The companies said the approach requires no additional hardware, software, interconnection, water or land usage for offtaking parties.
They said the capacity-as-a-solution model could be deployed in months rather than years. It is intended to create headroom on the existing grid by freeing transmission capacity, easing congestion on distribution infrastructure and extending the duration and depth of available capacity.
Together, the companies said they would form the largest distributed power plant in the country. The combined 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.
Sunrun chief executive Mary Powell said the arrangement could help data centres reduce operations during the most expensive hours of the day while also limiting the need for new infrastructure costs to be passed on to households.
The companies said they already have more than 300 megawatts of capacity available for immediate deployment in Virginia, which they described as the heart of Data Center Alley. They expect that figure to rise to at least 500 megawatts by 2030 as home battery and smart thermostat installations increase.
They also said they are capable of building multiple gigawatts of additional capacity across the country. In addition, the companies have committed to provide capacity to PJM’s proposed Reliability Backstop Process, which they said could unlock over a gigawatt of capacity if accepted.
Renew Home chief executive Ben Brown said the coalition was formed because hyperscalers are looking to reduce costs during the energy transition, and he said the companies believe residential energy assets can help meet that need.
Tesla Senior Director of Residential Energy Colby Hastings said the grid is under pressure from data centres, electrification and manufacturing growth, and that batteries, thermostats and electric vehicles in homes could help meet that demand.