Sunrun Launches Nation's First Vehicle-To-Home Power Plant With Ford's Help To Revolutionize The Grid

Clean energy company Sunrun RUN is behind the first vehicle-to-home power plant in the nation, using customer owned electric vehicles.

What Happened: In an effort to alleviate demand on the electrical grid, Sunrun is utilizing F-150 Lightning electric pickup trucks owned by its energy customers for this innovative power plant.

The partnership includes Sunrun, Ford Motor Company F, and Baltimore Gas and Electric Company (BGE), which is a subsidiary of Exelon Corporation EXC. BGE is the largest utility in Maryland, where the vehicle-to-home power plant operation takes place.

The power plant uses a small group of customer-owned bidirectional electric vehicles, which are all F-150 Lightning vehicles. The power from the trucks helps power homes during the peak demand times in the summer months to help Maryland's power grid.

Three Sunrun customers are currently part of the operation. The customers' F-150 Lightning trucks are sharing stored energy from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays from June 1 to Sept. 30, as part of the program. The customers will earn an estimated $800 a month for the four months in the program.

"This program is the first operational bidirectional electric vehicle power plant in the United States that uses a cohort of customer vehicles," a press release reads.

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Why It's Important: BGE received grant funding from the Department of Energy to create the virtual power plant. The utility company partnered with Sunrun to develop the program.

"This program is a significant proof of concept – no other market layer has done this – and the goal is to expand these programs all around the country," Sunrun CEO Mary Powell said. "This exciting partnership lays the foundation for the power grid of the future where electric vehicle owners can contribute to grid resiliency and utility price stability for everyone."

The new program is met to show that electric vehicles can reduce demand on the power grid.

"Partnering with Sunrun will allow BGE to unlock and learn the potential of how vehicle-to-grid programs will support increasing grid efficiency and reliability with distributed energy resources, while providing a valuable new benefit to customers," BGE Vice President of Regulatory Policy and Strategy Mark Case said.

Sunrun has worked with Ford Motor Company, the company behind the F-150 Lightning truck, previously. The companies partnered for Sunrun to be the preferred installer for Ford Intelligent Backup Power, the first commercially available bidirectional system in the U.S.

"The ability of Ford's F-150 Lightning to support the electric grid and generate revenue for the owner while parked at home is a game-changing moment for electric vehicles in Maryland and nationwide as other manufacturers will follow," Maryland state delegate David Fraser-Hidalgo said.

Electric vehicle company Tesla Inc TSLA has seen a boost to its Tesla Energy segment, with second-quarter results hitting a record for revenue and gross profits for the segment. Tesla deployed 9.4 GWh of energy storage in the second quarter.

Tesla is another company working to highlight the benefits of virtual power plants and using electric vehicles for energy generation to save on costs and provide power during blackouts and natural disasters.

The benefits of owning an electric vehicle and its ability to help with energy generation could be a future catalyst for the sector.

RUN Price Action: Sunrun shares are up 2.5% to $16.74 on Tuesday, versus a 52-week trading range of $8.43 to $22.16. Sunrun shares are up 45% over the last month.

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Image created using artificial intelligence via Midjourney.