Che Lopez / Vivint solar

09/03/2026

09/03/2026

Let's GO Sunrun/PG&E VPP program for homeowners!!

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September 3, 2026
Contact: PG&E External Communications 415-973-5930

PG&E, Rewiring America and Google Launch First-of-its-Kind Virtual Power Plant to Help Lower Costs for All Customers

Initiative aims to deliver hundreds of deeply discounted home energy upgrades and enroll over 20,000 existing energy devices installed in customers' homes

OAKLAND, Calif., Sept. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) today announced SHARE (Smart Home Assets for Reliability and Efficiency), a first-of-its-kind Virtual Power Plant (VPP) designed to help communities benefit from rising electric demand, while improving affordability and reliability for all customers.

Together, PG&E, Rewiring America, Google, Carrier Global Corporation, Tesla, Sunrun, Renew Home, Demand Side Analytics, encoord and other partners will deploy the new VPP—a coordinated network of home batteries, smart devices, and battery-enabled heat pumps that reduce energy use during periods of high demand—in Bay Area communities.

The model is designed to create additional capacity, support reliability and help put downward pressure on rates while participating households save money through smarter energy management with next-generation home technology. SHARE is a first-of-its-kind VPP proof-of-concept that combines enrollment of existing home energy devices with regional deployment of privately funded new electrification technologies to address growing electric demand.

"This is about delivering power at the speed our economy demands—while improving affordability and reliability for the people we serve," said Chelle Izzi, Chief Commercial Officer, PG&E. "SHARE shows how investing in customers can unlock grid capacity, support growth, and bring real benefits back to communities."

A New Approach to Meeting Rising Demand
Electric demand is rising across the country as more businesses, vehicles, homes and buildings rely on electricity. PG&E continues to aggressively build and modernize the electric system to meet long-term growth, including needed transmission and distribution investments.

SHARE adds a complementary, near-term pathway: investing directly in homes located where energy demand is growing. This proof-of-concept VPP is designed to demonstrate how targeted investments in homes can help:

Improve reliability and lower costs by making better use of everyday, flexible home energy resources alongside continued grid investment
Expand capacity during periods of high demand
Support new and growing energy users more quickly
PG&E is working with Tesla, Sunrun, and Renew Home to enroll nearly 21,000 existing flexible energy devices into the program. This will allow participating households to gain new ways to manage their energy costs and earn rewards for the smart features they already use, while shifting demand during peak periods helping make better use of existing infrastructure, benefiting customers across the region. The resource is expected to begin supporting the grid as early as fall 2026.

"Home energy devices hold enormous, untapped capacity that can meaningfully improve affordability and reliability for all Californians," said Mary Powell, CEO of Sunrun. "This initiative unlocks that potential while giving customers an opportunity to share in the economic benefits of helping improve their local grid."

Carrier is the initiative's launch partner for the new deployments, providing its battery-enabled heat pump solution, including the Carrier Performance™ Series Variable-Speed Heat Pump with EnerSync™, that automatically stores and shifts energy use to help lower costs for customers, maintain comfort, and support grid reliability during periods of peak demand.

"As energy demand grows, SHARE demonstrates how Carrier can help deliver distributed capacity with the firmness to scale as a fast and reliable grid resource," said Hakan Yilmaz, President, Carrier Energy & Chief Sustainability Officer. "Carrier's battery-enabled HVAC technology brings together our trusted comfort, market presence and dealer scale to help deliver homeowner value and reliable grid flexibility."

Eligible customers in Santa Clara and Alameda counties will have the opportunity to receive:

New Carrier high-efficiency, battery-enabled heat pumps
Lower monthly energy bills through smarter energy management
Greater comfort and improved home resilience
All told, these resources will be orchestrated into a distributed power plant by PG&E and Demand Side Analytics with the goal of unlocking additional capacity on the regional electric transmission system.

Designed to Protect Customers
SHARE reflects a shared commitment to responsible energy growth and is structured so that existing customers benefit from growing grid capacity needs. The program will be fully funded by Google to support customer incentives, technology deployment, and program delivery.

"As demand scales, our current electricity grid can bridge the gap—if we optimize it correctly," said Amanda Peterson Corio, Global Head of Energy & Power at Google. "This program unlocks the potential of local distributed energy resources to strengthen grid capacity and resiliency while delivering meaningful benefits for local communities."

Rewiring America will work directly with households to deploy and enroll energy-saving electric technologies into SHARE that can serve as flexible grid resources while improving the customer experience. They will also work closely with local installers to ensure projects meet high quality and performance standards.

"This initiative shows how households can be part of the energy solution," said Ari Matusiak, Founder and CEO of Rewiring America. "By helping families upgrade their homes with efficient electric technologies, we can lower costs, improve comfort, and optimize California's grid capacity at the same time."

PG&E will lead planning, analysis, and validation to evaluate customer impacts, system performance and long-term benefits.

A Model for California—and Beyond
SHARE represents a new way for utilities, customers and technology partners to work together to help meet electricity growth reliably and affordably through smarter utilization of the grid. This location-based approach is designed to inform future solutions for transmission constraints, local capacity challenges and rising demand across the electric system.

Over time, the proof of concept could expand beyond residential customers to include commercial, industrial, and utility-scale applications—supporting economic growth, improving grid utilization and lowering emissions.

PG&E and Rewiring America will begin reaching out to eligible customers starting fall 2026. SHARE is expected to run through 2027, with initial findings from the program expected to be shared in late 2026 or early 2027.

To learn more and explore program eligibility, visit https://energyshare.rewiringamerica.org/

About PG&E
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE: PCG), is a combined natural gas and electric utility serving more than sixteen million people across 70,000 square miles in Northern and Central California. For more information, visit pge.com, pge.com/news, and pge.com/innovation.

About Google
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Through products and platforms like Search, Maps, Gmail, Android, Google Play, Google Cloud, Chrome, and YouTube, Google plays a meaningful role in the daily lives of billions of people and has become one of the most widely-known companies in the world. Google is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.

About Rewiring America
Rewiring America puts American households at the center of an affordable, resilient, all-electric future. We partner with policymakers, industry leaders, manufacturers, workers, and communities to strengthen the electric grid, lower energy prices, and build Homegrown Energy solutions for all.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pge-rewiring-america-and-google-launch-first-of-its-kind-virtual-power-plant-to-help-lower-costs-for-all-customers-302868400.html

SOURCE Pacific Gas and Electric Company

08/18/2026

https://www.facebook.com/100064731309074/posts/1510719637762399/?mibextid=Nif5oz

NEW: Sunrun is introducing the first-ever behind-the-meter residential wholesale capacity resource for AI hyperscalers.

Under a multi-year agreement with Voltus, the companies will turn thousands of Sunrun’s residential storage-plus-solar systems across both PJM and MISO grid regions to create a distributed power plant capable of immediately delivering megawatts of reliable, flexible capacity when the grid and hyperscalers need it most.

- Customers get compensated for participating
- Communities benefit from new energy investment
- Hyperscalers get faster access to critical energy capacity
- The grid gets more reliability and flexibility without waiting for new infrastructure

“Meeting growing energy demand requires us to maximize every single electron available across the country,” says Sunrun CEO Mary Powell. “This is just the beginning of what distributed energy assets can achieve.”

Read our announcement here: https://bit.ly/4xBONc0

07/22/2026

Here's the math that breaks down the cost of solar for PG&E customers:

- Cash outlay: $24,112.50
- 26% federal tax credit: -$6,269.25
- Net cost: $17,843.25
- Average home value increase: $15,000

- Value of 1st Year Solar Output: $2,550.36
- Pays for itself in: 6 years
- 25 Year Net Profit: $101,531.46

- Unit size: 7.5kw
- Average Price/Watt: $3.22
- Avg. Annual Solar Output: 12,459 kWh
- Avg. Electricity Cost: 20.47 Cents/kWh
- Average Utility Rate Increase (estimated): 8%

Think of solar as a conservative long-term investment that has a close-to-guaranteed return.

The dirty secret your utility company doesn't want you to know is: they control the cost of your power, and they can increase rates at any time.

One utility in an area we work just raised rates by 29%!

Switching to solar is like changing your utility company to one that guarantees the rate won't increase.

Looking at a 25 year-window (the length of most solar panel warranties) solar panels provide a *very* stable return on the initial investment.

And just like a car, paying cash is not required to go solar, but it does give you a higher return. You can go solar for $0-down or PPA(Power purchase agreement)
the system and save money from day one.

If you're only looking for the highest return investment, solar panels probably aren't for you.
..unless your roof has great solar potential - depends on your location, your roof position.

(Click below to find out if it is.)

Or unless you're looking for a conservative, long-term investment that is as steady as sunshine and won't subject you to wild fluctuations like the stock market.

Or... you just don't like paying power companies, and would rather them pay you.

PS - If you're interested in solar, don't wait -
Contact me to schedule an appointment to see if your home qualifies

[email protected]

07/12/2026

Sunrun
Home batteries can make a big difference

"We've had one outage since going live, and because we got the batteries, there was no interruption to our day." — John, Bakersfield, CA

Love the sleek new system and battery backup for when our utility elects to turn our power off." — Eugenia, Sacramento, CA

"It's the end of August and my bills are still in the minus. I keep my house at 75° even when it's 115° outside." — Claire, Phoenix, AZ

Find out how a home battery can help you beat the heat this summer.

Get a free battery quote
DM me for an appointment

06/12/2026

My new Sun Run landing page!!

https://bestcompany.com/reps/che-lopez/t/sales/profile

Please check it out and refer any family, friends, co workers, homeowners who want to save on their raising electricity rates and have back up batteries to power their homes when the power grid goes down.
Thank you,
Che

Sunrun verified sales professional

05/30/2026

Energy
Utility companies want to pay you to generate power for the electrical grid
Some states offer homeowners the option of generating their own power and sending what they don’t use back to the grid. Other states are preparing to.

Listen to this article with a free account

00:00
05:51

1x

Electricity costs are going up. But what if your utility paid you instead?
02:32

By Maya Huter and Brian Cheung
HOUSTON — Jeff and Jenny Wright haven’t paid an electric bill for their Houston home in more than a year. Instead, the couple sells their unused power back to the grid in a system that some states hope can offer a way to help meet surging demand for

Americans today pay 40% more, on average, for their electricity than they did just six years ago.

Generating their own power makes a big difference for the Wrights and rarely more so than it did this spring, when energy costs soared even higher because of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Nationwide, energy prices jumped 4% in April alone.

“I’m getting fairly close to retirement, so cost control for us is a big thing,” said Jeff Wright.

The Wrights have solar panels on their roof that are capable of powering the home appliances and the TVs they use on a daily basis.

But they also have two Tesla battery packs mounted on the side of their home — the key equipment they needed in order to turn their home from a solar-powered stand-alone into part of a virtual power plant (VPP) network. Any excess energy not used by the Wrights can be stored and sent back to the central power grid to help stabilize it during times of peak demand.

VPPs currently exist, or are in the works, in 35 states and Washington, D.C. The largest networks are in California and Texas.

In Texas, the Wrights are paid a $240 yearly reward from their solar provider, Sunrun, on top of monthly credits, which have been up to $30 once all their power needs are met.

But credits and saving on electric bills may not immediately cover the cost of installing solar panels, which can run into the tens of thousands of dollars, and sometimes involve leasing plans.

For the Wrights, the energy independence is worth it. They also say the system is more resilient during extreme weather events.

“I never notice it, the lights don’t dim,” said Jeff Wright. “We’ve never come close to running out of energy.”

Energy companies like Sunrun and Reliant, one of Texas’ primary energy providers, say there are broader implications to more houses contributing to VPP networks.

America’s power grid is currently not generating enough power to meet what experts predict will be needed to power the AI data centers being planned and built in communities across the country.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the country will need to add new resources to support about 200 gigawatts of peak demand. For reference, 1 gigawatt is equal to about 1.3 million horsepower and can power about 750,000 homes for a year.

According to a report by the Rocky Mountain Institute, VPPs could reduce peak demand in the United States by 60 gigawatts by 2030 and help reduce annual power sector expenditures by $17 billion.

“The grid hasn’t seen growth for decades, and people don’t realize that,” said Paul Dickson, the president of Sunrun, America’s largest distributed energy company. “That’s getting turned on its head over the next 15 years — the grid is anticipating 40% growth, and so it’s a lot of strain on the same poles and wires.”

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Data Graphics
Graphic: Track U.S., state and county gas prices
The last time the grid experienced this level of demand growth was around the turn of the millennium, as the U.S. economy grew and air conditioning, the internet and personal computers all saw massive growth.

For the past two decades, however, typical annual growth from factors like population have been offset by increased energy efficiency across everything from appliances to light bulbs to cars.

Sunrun said it currently has 107,000 customers nationwide enrolled in a VPP. In 2025, those customers contributed 18 gigawatt-hours of power back to the grid, which is enough to power 15 million homes for one hour. The company paid those customers $17 million for that energy.

For Dickson, stabilizing the power grid is a race against time. Building a conventional power plant can take 10 to 12 years, while a nuclear facility could take decades. Booting up a functioning VPP takes just a few months.

“The 100,000 homes that we do every year equates to the same output as a nuclear power plant,” he said. “Smaller power plants that are being built in three to five years, we do every three to four months.”

Sunrun said it aims to grow its fleet of dispatchable battery systems to 10 gigawatt-hours by the end of 2028.

A gigawatt-hour is a unit of energy that measures how much electricity is produced or used over time. One gigawatt-hour is equal to 1 billion watts of power used or generated continuously for one hour.

But VPPs can draw power from a variety of sources, not just solar panels. A smart thermostat can be part of a VPP system.

“You really don’t need a bunch of fancy devices in order to be a participant in any of our virtual power plant programs,” said Bill Clayton, senior vice president of Reliant, which says it currently has 300,000 customers participating in VPPs.

Reliant says it’s working on ways to power VPPs through electric vehicles parked in people’s garages.

“EVs are the crown jewel in terms of putting demand or putting supply back on the grid or reducing demand on the grid,” Clayton said. “It’s going to be a critical phase for us.”

In Houston, Jeff Wright says his neighbors are already asking him about VPPs after his home system zapped his monthly utility bills to effectively zero.

“We’ve got two batteries here, and what we have is not going to stabilize the entire grid, but if enough of us get together and do this, it will help everybody in Texas and ourselves as well,” he said.

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Maya Huter
Maya Huter is a Producer at NBC News covering business and the economy.

Brian Cheung
Brian Cheung is a business and data correspondent for NBC News.

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05/29/2026

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