Decentralized Energy Offensive in Texas: Sunrun and NRG Combine Solar and Storage for Virtual Power Plant – Sunrun Shares Rise
San Francisco, Houston (USA) – Sunrun and NRG Energy have announced a multi-year partnership to expand decentralized energy capacity in Texas.
Through the collaboration, NRG intends to advance its goal of building a virtual power plant with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts (1 gigawatt) by 2035. Brad Bentley, Executive Vice President and President of NRG Consumer, described the partnership as an important step toward achieving this goal. Cooperation with Sunrun is expected to unlock a new source of “dispatchable, flexible energy.”
At the core of the model is an integrated offering for Texas households: Sunrun supplies solar-plus-storage systems, while NRG’s electricity provider Reliant delivers optimized tariffs and intelligent control of the batteries. New and existing Sunrun customers who switch to Reliant make their pooled storage capacity available to the market to balance peak loads.
The agreement targets the ERCOT market, the electricity market system for most of Texas. Operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, it is largely disconnected from the rest of the U.S. power grid and is under increasing pressure from population growth, industrialization, and extreme weather.
Sunrun CEO Mary Powell emphasized the importance of decentralized assets for energy security: “We are delivering critical energy infrastructure that gives Texas families affordable, resilient power and builds a reliable, flexible power plant for the grid,” Powell said.
The companies plan to activate the distributed battery storage in a targeted manner during periods of high demand. Sunrun receives compensation for aggregating the capacities, while participating Reliant customers are paid for providing their stored solar energy. The model follows the growing trend of integrating private energy systems more closely into the electricity market.
Source: IWR Online, 18 Dec 2025
