Lunar Gridshare supports Sunrun in largest home battery VPP program in US history
In the summer of 2023, thousands of California homes took part in the largest residential battery Virtual Power Plant (VPP) in United States history. Lunar Gridshare provided fleet management, diagnosis, and battery planning to Sunrun for this first-of-its-kind partnership with Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E).
The Peak Power Rewards program from Sunrun and PG&E supplied the grid with a consistent daily average of 27 megawatts over two hours for 90 consecutive days in August, September, and October and peaked at nearly 32 megawatts. That power — sufficient for more than 20,000 homes — helped the grid through its most strained months.
Lunar Gridshare discharged thousands of enrolled home batteries from different manufacturers to meet utility needs between 7pm and 9pm every night.
“Gridshare managed this program seamlessly for us, and proved VPPs can be a reliable grid resource at scale,” said Chris Rauscher, Head of Grid Services & Distributed Power Plants at Sunrun. “But we’ve just begun to show what’s possible with VPPs. What we delivered was relatively simple — a specific amount of power every day at the same time. Together with Gridshare we have the ability to do much more. We can choose specific regions to reduce congestion, or target different and dynamic times of the day. Gridshare stands out as a software platform not just for its market-leading functionality but also for its committed team, always ready to collaborate with us on developing new features and future programs.”
During the VPP’s operation, Gridshare demonstrated its unique ability to optimize for both the grid’s needs and Sunrun customers’ needs. For example, Gridshare integrated data from the National Weather Service to ensure batteries prioritized maintaining power for the home during severe weather events and a possible grid outage. Through its ability to provide detailed control of each battery in the VPP, Gridshare could charge those few batteries in a storm’s path and make up the difference from the rest of the VPP fleet to meet the grid’s needs.
“We’ve demonstrated VPPs can be win-win for all parties,” said Ed Gunn, Senior Director of Commercial Sales of Lunar Energy. “We built Gridshare to meet any partner where they are. From simple programs to complex multi-product, dynamic tariff co-optimization of behind-the-meter and VPP programs. Energy markets are developing quickly around the world, and Gridshare can easily scale up or down to meet the needs of any program size or complexity.”
Sunrun and Lunar Gridshare continue to operate more than a dozen VPP programs throughout the United States and are working on program development and management for new programs.
To learn more about how Lunar Gridshare could optimize your distributed energy resources, book a demo here.
