Sunrun and NRG Want Texas Homes to Act Like a Power Plant. CRE Should Pay Attention.
Texas is adding electrical demand faster than it can comfortably add wires, transformers and new generation. ERCOT, the state’s grid operator, told its board this month it is tracking about 226 gigawatts of large-load interconnection requests as of Nov. 18 — up from 63 GW in December 2024 — and it estimates about 73% of that pipeline is tied to data centers.
That is the backdrop for a new move that looks residential on the surface, but has real implications for commercial real estate: Sunrun and NRG Energy are building a Texas virtual power plant (VPP) that will aggregate home batteries and dispatch them into the ERCOT market during peak demand.
If you own or develop master-planned communities, build-to-rent neighborhoods or large multifamily portfolios, this is a signal that “energy amenities” are evolving — from a few chargers and a nice marketing line into something closer to grid-interactive living.
What a virtual power plant is — in plain language
The Department of Energy describes a virtual power plant as a connected aggregation of distributed energy resources that can add demand flexibility and integrate renewables more effectively.
Reuters has put it more simply: bundled together by the hundreds or thousands, devices like solar panels and batteries can be called on to supply power when the grid is stretched or store it when there is excess generation. That pooled resource is a VPP.
For real estate people, the key point is not the acronym. It’s the shift in mindset: small assets, coordinated by software, can behave like infrastructure — and get paid like it.
What Sunrun and NRG announced
Sunrun and NRG said December 16th they have entered a multi-year partnership to accelerate adoption of distributed energy in Texas, with a focus on home battery storage.
NRG’s retail electricity provider in Texas, Reliant, will offer customers a bundled home energy solution that pairs Sunrun solar-plus-storage with optimized rate plans and smart battery programming. As new and existing Sunrun customers enroll with Reliant, the “cumulative capacity” will be available to help meet increased demand in the ERCOT market, the companies said.
NRG Consumer President Brad Bentley called the partnership “a major step” toward a goal of creating a 1-gigawatt virtual power plant by 2035. Sunrun CEO Mary Powell framed the same concept as “critical energy infrastructure” that provides affordable, resilient power for families while building a flexible resource for the grid.
Mechanically, the business model is straightforward: Sunrun will be paid for aggregating capacity, and participating Reliant customers will be compensated by Sunrun for sharing stored solar energy.
Why ERCOT makes this more than a marketing story
ERCOT’s own materials show why “fast” solutions are suddenly attractive. The scale of the large-load queue — and the fact that many requests exceed 1 GW per site — creates a planning problem that traditional infrastructure timelines struggle to match. ERCOT has warned that both transmission and resource adequacy need to be considered in how quickly large loads can connect and ramp up.
That is exactly where VPPs fit. They are not a replacement for new generation or new lines. But they can buy time and reduce peak stress — the moments that tend to drive outages, emergency pricing and political heat.
Texas regulators have also been shaping a pathway for aggregated distributed resources. The Public Utility Commission of Texas shifted development of the state’s aggregated distributed energy resource pilot into the ERCOT stakeholder process in 2025, with the goal of engaging a larger community of market participants. As of February 2025, the pilot had three VPPs providing 25.5 MW of energy and nearly 20 MW of other reserve services, Utility Dive reported.That’s a small base compared with a 1-GW ambition — but it matters because it shows Texas is moving VPPs from theory toward market rules.
Why this is a real estate story — especially for master-planned and multifamily communities
At first glance, a home-battery VPP sounds like something outside a landlord’s job description. But in practice, developers and property owners influence the conditions that make these programs viable:
Electrical design and panel capacity determine whether batteries and EV charging are easy or expensive later.
Parking and garage layouts influence whether EV charging can be scaled without tearing up finished surfaces.
Amenity strategy increasingly includes energy (resilience, bill management, “smart home” features), not just gyms and dog parks.
A VPP-ready neighborhood can become a differentiator in Texas markets where outage memory is still fresh and electricity prices can swing. It’s also a preview of how “tenant expectations” may evolve: residents will increasingly ask not only whether a property has EV charging, but whether it has backup power and a way to manage bills during peak pricing.
For multifamily owners, the direct analog may not be “a battery per unit.” It may be community-scale storage, managed controls and demand flexibility that allow EV charging, electrified HVAC and common-area loads to coexist without pushing demand charges through the roof. The principle is the same: orchestrate loads instead of simply adding them.
The part CRE teams should not miss: VPPs change the value of flexibility
A decade ago, many buildings were passive. They bought power and paid the bill.
VPPs are part of a broader shift in which flexible loads and behind-the-meter assets are becoming financeable. The technology and the contracts are getting packaged into consumer-friendly offers — like the separate Reliant partnership announced with GoodLeap that includes a $40-per-month credit for certain customers who participate in a battery program tied to NRG’s VPP platform.
Whether that specific offer is right for your residents is secondary. The signal is primary: retail electricity providers are building scale programs that monetize flexibility.
CRE owners should see this as both an opportunity and a competitive pressure. Properties that can shift load, shave peaks and participate in programs will be better insulated from volatility than properties that simply add more electrified equipment onto an already constrained service.
What owners and developers should ask now
You do not need to become an energy expert to respond. But you should start asking the kinds of questions that turn “we should add electrification” into a bankable plan:
What do we want to optimize for — resilience, operating cost, or tenant experience?
The right design changes depending on whether the goal is outage coverage, demand-charge management, or a simple “EV-ready” amenity.Who controls dispatch, and what are the guardrails?
VPP participation only works if there are clear rules about minimum backup reserve, opt-outs and customer experience during outages. (If residents feel like they “lost” their backup power, the program fails.)What is the simplest backbone we can build now?
Conduit, panel capacity and metering strategy are the kinds of investments that keep options open without forcing you into one vendor or one timeline.How does this fit the lease and amenity strategy?
If “energy services” become a standard expectation, owners will want the same contractual clarity they demand for telecom: who owns the relationship, who owns the data, and who carries uptime obligations.
Bottom line
Sunrun and NRG are betting that the next big resource on the Texas grid will not be a single new plant — it will be thousands of smaller assets coordinated as one.
For commercial real estate, the immediate takeaway is not “install home batteries.” It is that grid-interactive power is becoming a mainstream product, and Texas is the market where those products will be tested under real load stress.
If you develop or operate housing at scale, especially in master-planned and multifamily formats, you have a window to design communities that can adopt these programs cleanly — and to position energy resilience and bill management as real amenities, not afterthoughts. As ERCOT’s demand pipeline continues to balloon, the properties that can offer flexibility will be the ones that feel less exposed to grid volatility — and more in control of their operating story.
