Tesla partners with Sunrun on its ‘Tesla Electric’ utility

Tesla Electric, Tesla’s electric utility division, is partnering with solar installer Sunrun to grow its user base in Texas.

After gaining experience through its virtual power plants (VPPs), Tesla took things a step further with the launch of “Tesla Electric” back in 2022.

Instead of reacting to specific “events” and providing services to your local electric utilities, as Tesla Powerwall owners have done in VPPs in California, Australia, and a few other markets, Tesla Electric is actively and automatically buying and selling electricity for Tesla Powerwall owners – providing a buffer against peak prices.

The company is essentially becoming an energy retailer.

Tesla Electric is currently only available to Powerwall owners in Texas and the UK, but the company has plans to expand its products through this new division.

Today, we learn that Tesla Electric secured a new partner: Sunrun.

Sunrun, one of the biggest solar installers in the US, confirmed that it is onboarding its clients in Texas on the Tesla Electric program:

Sunrun (Nasdaq: RUN), the nation’s leading provider of clean energy as a subscription service, announced today that it has expanded its support for the energy grid in Texas with a partnership with Tesla Electric, a retail electricity provider operated by Tesla Energy Ventures LLC, a subsidiary of Tesla, Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA). The partnership has already enrolled more than 150 Sunrun customers in an aggregated power program and will scale up enrollments while dispatching stored solar energy from at-home batteries to rapidly increase available electricity reserves on the grid during periods of high consumption.

The company was already partnering with Tesla to install Powerwalls with its solar installations.

Sunrun describes the ERCOT program under which Tesla Electric is operating:

Sunrun customers who enroll will be participating in ERCOT’s Aggregated Distributed Energy Resources pilot program aimed at strengthening grid reliability by networking together customer-sited storage devices to serve as a resource for the wholesale electricity market. Additionally, customer Powerwall batteries will also help to lower the costs of energy at the wholesale level. The resulting energy cost savings will be shared with customers.

The company says that Tesla Electric customers in Texas made about $400 per Powerwall this year.

We previously reported on a Tesla Electric customer covering their entire energy needs plus making over $1,000 in 2023 with 3 Powerwalls and 12 kW of solar.

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