Sunrun and Tesla set 745 MW home battery grid dispatch record

Sunrun (NASDAQ: RUN) and Tesla set a new record for residential distributed power plant dispatches in the U.S., delivering 745 megawatts of peak power to California's electricity grid on October 6, 2026, during a prolonged heat wave, according to a company press release.

The October 6 dispatch followed a prior record of 669 megawatts set the previous evening on October 5. Both events were triggered at the request of the California Energy Commission and utilities, which called on the companies to discharge home batteries during multi-hour evening peak periods. The dispatches were activated after California's Independent System Operator's day-ahead locational marginal electricity price exceeded $200 per megawatt-hour on both evenings.

The 745-megawatt output on October 6 was described as sufficient to power all households in San Francisco and San Jose combined during peak hours. The October 5 event also marked the first time this year that California's Demand Side Grid Support program and the Emergency Load Reduction Program called for concurrent dispatches across all participating investor-owned utility service territories.

The two events surpassed the previous residential distributed power plant record of 580 megawatts, set on September 9, 2026, which itself broke a record of 539 megawatts set in July 2025. Sunrun states it has more than 120,000 residential batteries enrolled to support California's grid.

"These record-setting events prove that the energy infrastructure already installed in people's homes can deliver power at a scale that makes a real difference for the grid," said Sunrun CEO Mary Powell.

Sunrun, Tesla, and Everyday Electric separately announced plans last month to enroll nearly 21,000 existing flexible energy devices in a Google-funded distributed power plant with PG&E, focused on the San Jose area. Initial dispatching from that project is expected to begin in October 2026.

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