Sunrun Inc. and NRG Energy Inc. announced a multi‑year partnership on December 16 2025 that will pair Sunrun’s solar‑plus‑storage systems with NRG’s Reliant retail electricity plans, enabling Texas homeowners to share stored solar power with the grid during peak demand periods.
Under the agreement, Sunrun will aggregate and dispatch the combined storage capacity of participating Reliant customers, providing dispatchable power to the ERCOT market. In return, Sunrun will compensate those customers for the energy they share, creating a new revenue stream for both companies and a scalable virtual power plant model that can be expanded as more homes install Sunrun’s systems.
The partnership is a strategic move for Sunrun, which has been unprofitable with a trailing‑12‑month EPS of –$10.85. By leveraging NRG’s extensive retail footprint in Texas, Sunrun can rapidly increase its distributed storage inventory and move closer to its goal of building a 1 GW virtual power plant by 2035. For NRG, the deal supports its own 1 GW VPP target and strengthens its Reliant brand in a highly competitive market.
Financial context underscores the significance of the deal. NRG’s Q3 2025 EPS of $2.78 beat analysts’ estimate of $2.19, reflecting strong earnings growth in its retail and generation segments. Sunrun’s Q3 2025 EPS of $0.06 missed expectations of $0.21, driven by higher operating costs and a shift toward higher‑margin residential installations. The partnership offers Sunrun a new source of revenue that could help offset its ongoing losses, while NRG gains a scalable asset that enhances its grid‑services portfolio.
Management emphasized the strategic fit. Brad Bentley, President of NRG Consumer, said the partnership “is a major step in achieving our goal of creating a 1 GW virtual power plant by 2035” and highlighted the opportunity for customers to earn revenue from their homes. Mary Powell, CEO of Sunrun, noted that the collaboration “demonstrates the scale and strength of Sunrun’s storage and solar distributed power plant assets” and that it “builds a reliable, flexible power plant for the grid.”
The announcement was noted by market participants, with analysts observing that the partnership aligns with broader industry trends toward distributed energy resources and grid flexibility. The deal positions both companies to capture growth in Texas’s expanding renewable‑energy market and to enhance grid reliability during peak demand periods.
Implications for investors include a potential shift in Sunrun’s revenue mix toward higher‑margin distributed energy services and a new pathway for NRG to accelerate its virtual power plant strategy. The partnership also signals a continued industry focus on aggregating distributed resources to meet ERCOT’s evolving market rules and to support Texas’s energy reliability goals.
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