Sunrun completes ‘first-of-its-kind’ residential VPP season in New England ISO

October 13, 2022
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Reddit
Email
VPPs that aggregate residential solar and storage can help to reduce the demand for dirty peaker plants in peak demand periods. Image: Sunrun.

US solar installer Sunrun has completed its first successful season running a residential Virtual Power Plant (VPP) in a wholesale capacity market, which the company said was a “first-of-its-kind in the country”.

From June to August, the Sunrun’s New England VPP shared more than 1.8GWh of energy back to the US’ grid, with thousands of Sunrun solar homes in New England exporting excess solar energy during the peak demand window of 1pm-5pm.

This article requires Premium SubscriptionBasic (FREE) Subscription

Try Premium for just $1

  • Full premium access for the first month at only $1
  • Converts to an annual rate after 30 days unless cancelled
  • Cancel anytime during the trial period

Premium Benefits

  • Expert industry analysis and interviews
  • Digital access to PV Tech Power journal
  • Exclusive event discounts

Or get the full Premium subscription right away

Or continue reading this article for free

“The VPP also helped minimise the use of expensive, polluting peaker plants while reducing energy costs across the region and ensuring a reliable source of power,” the company said in a statement.

In 2019, the company won its cost-competitive bid into the Independent System Operator – New England (ISO-NE). It was the first successful bid committing capacity value from home solar and battery storage systems to the grid, according to Sunrun.

And in an August report, ISO-NE detailed how home solar helped keep wholesale system demand below the average forecast throughout a heat wave in July.  

“It is tremendous that we are able to work with ISO-NE to integrate local home solar and battery systems into the wholesale markets,” said Mary Powell, CEO of Sunrun, which has been riding the wave of strong demand for residential solar solutions in the US, adding more than 34,000 in Q2 this year.

“This is a wonderful example of radical collaboration and demonstrates the importance of every market operator leveraging local clean energy resources to solve capacity constraints and grid reliability,” Powell continued.

When bound together to form VPPs, home solar and batteries can significantly support the grid and reduce peak demand, Sunrun said.

16 June 2026
Napa, USA
PV Tech has been running PV ModuleTech Conferences since 2017. PV ModuleTech USA, on 16-17 June 2026, will be our fifth PV ModulelTech conference dedicated to the U.S. utility scale solar sector. The event will gather the key stakeholders from solar developers, solar asset owners and investors, PV manufacturing, policy-making and and all interested downstream channels and third-party entities. The goal is simple: to map out the PV module supply channels to the U.S. out to 2027 and beyond.

Read Next

October 29, 2025
Greenvolt and European Energy have finalised financial deals for solar-plus-storage projects in Denmark and Latvia.
October 29, 2025
NextEra Energy Resources added 3GW of new renewable energy generation and storage capacity to its portfolio in the third quarter of 2025.
October 29, 2025
US solar manufacturer Corning has brought online its wafer production at its Michigan plant, during the third quarter of 2025.
Premium
October 28, 2025
BESS are 'the new player that everyone is talking about,' in Europe’s power purchase agreement (PPA) space, according to LevelTen.
October 27, 2025
Engie has signed additional PPAs with Meta, expanding their partnership to more than 1.3GW across four solar projects in Texas.
October 27, 2025
Waaree Energies has secured four solar module supply contracts totalling 692MW – three for projects in India and one in the US through its subsidiary.

Subscribe to Newsletter

Upcoming Events

Upcoming Webinars
November 12, 2025
10am PST / 1pm EST
Solar Media Events
November 25, 2025
Warsaw, Poland
Solar Media Events
December 2, 2025
Málaga, Spain
Solar Media Events
February 3, 2026
London, UK
Solar Media Events
March 10, 2026
Frankfurt, Germany