More than 1.8 GWh of clean energy was fed into the grid between hot summer months of June 2022 to August 2022 by the New England residential virtual power plant (VPP) that Sunrun has now been running for a full 'successful' season in the US wholesale market.
Announcing the milestone, Sunrun explained that during this period thousands of its home solar systems installed across New England exported excess solar energy during peak demand window of 1.00 pm to 5.00 pm. This clean power helped bring down the use of expensive, polluting peaker plants and reducing energy costs across the region with this reliable energy source.
Sunrun pointed out that solar energy generation at this level comes at a time when Americans are battling skyrocketing energy prices, inflation and grid operators are issuing energy conservation warnings due to severe heat waves in the country.
The residential solar power company secured the project with a cost-competitive bid under 13th annual forward capacity market auction of the regional grid operator and one of the largest wholesale electricity markets in the US, the Independent System Operator-New England (ISO-NE) in 2019 (see Sunrun Wins Solar Contract For US Grid Operator).
"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," said Sunrun CEO Mary Powell. "As more severe and frequent heat waves, arctic freezes and other climatic events continue to stress our nation's grid, we strongly encourage grid operators, utilities and policy makers alike to leverage these amazing solar energy resources."