Tesla and Sunrun, along with Renew Home, are moving to build the largest U.S. virtual power plant (VPP) to target surging electricity demand from artificial intelligence (AI) data centers.

Electrek, an electric-vehicle outlet, reported on Tuesday that the three companies agreed to cooperate on operating already installed distributed power resources such as home batteries and smart thermostats as if they were a single power plant. The target capacity is up to 16.8 gigawatts. The plan is to supply power that data centers and utilities can use without building new power plants.

The core of the project is to bundle energy resources already installed in homes. It will integrate hundreds of thousands of home battery systems operated by Sunrun and Tesla with more than 8 million smart thermostats and connected devices managed by Renew Home and use them as a large-scale power resource.

The three companies said this would allow data center operators and utilities to secure needed power without additional power plant construction, transmission grid expansion or grid interconnection work. They highlighted that new power plants and transmission lines take years to build, while distributed power resources can be deployed within months.

The first region of application is Virginia, the largest U.S. concentration of data centers. The companies said more than 300 megawatts of power is available for immediate use now, and that it can be increased to at least 500 MW by 2030 if household batteries and smart devices become more widespread.

They also submitted capacity to a reliability reinforcement program run by PJM, the operator of the largest U.S. power market, and said they expect to be able to use more than 1 GW of power even now if approval is obtained.

The cooperation is a strategy aimed at a rapid increase in data center power shortages as AI spreads. The companies forecast U.S. data center electricity demand will rise to 41 GW in 2026 and to 66 GW in 2027. They judged that using already installed distributed energy resources is a realistic alternative when new power plants and transmission grid construction cannot keep pace with rising demand.

Mary Powell (메리 파월), Sunrun's chief executive, said, "A power grid from the 1800s cannot handle innovation in 2026." She said using a virtual power plant during hours when data centers consume the most electricity can quickly supply needed power.

They also stressed economic viability. An analysis by The Brattle Group cited by the companies said increasing use of the existing power grid could cut U.S. electricity bills by $110 billion to $170 billion over the next 10 years and bring forward data centers' grid connection timing by several years.

The power grid is designed around peak demand that occurs only for a very small number of hours each year, leaving facilities idle for most of the time. They said spreading peak-time demand using home batteries and smart thermostats can lower the overall cost of the power system.

Ben Brown (벤 브라운), Renew Home's CEO, said, "Hyperscale data center operators have a powerful motivation to lower power costs." Colby Hastings (콜비 헤이스팅스), a senior director overseeing Tesla's residential energy business, also said, "Batteries, smart thermostats and electric vehicles installed in U.S. homes are a huge power resource that has not yet been fully utilized."

The market also reacted positively. Sunrun shares surged as much as 26 percent intraday. Investors focused on the possibility that the residential solar business could develop into a new recurring revenue model as it links to data center power demand in the AI era.

But the 16.8 GW presented by the companies is not the amount of power that can actually be generated continuously. It is a potential figure that adds up home battery storage capacity and the peak-time power reduction effect of smart thermostats. The realistically available scale for immediate use is about 300 MW in Virginia.

Key variables for realizing the plan include expanding customer participation, approval of utility programs, and whether PJM accepts it.

The cooperation is meaningful as a new attempt to directly connect already built distributed energy resources to supply power to AI data centers instead of building large power plants. Whether it can lead to actual contracts and commercial supply is expected to be an important point to watch in the next-generation U.S. power market.