Sunrun (Nasdaq: RUN) has networked more than 16,200 customers’ solar + storage systems to support California’s electrical grid during the summer months.

Sunrun’s CalReady virtual power plant will play a key role in supporting California’s grid, providing essential energy to communities when it’s most needed to help cut costs and prevent power outages.

A virtual power plant is a network of decentralized power generating units – such as solar + storage – collectively managed by a central control system to supply power and provide grid services efficiently.

In the summer of 2023, Sunrun’s Peak Power Rewards virtual power plant program delivered up to 32 megawatts of power to Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) during evening peak hours, thanks to the participation of 8,500 customers and their batteries.

Sunrun expects to roughly double 2023’s capacity and participants for the statewide Demand Side Grid Support virtual power plant program this summer.

The California Energy Commission runs the Demand Side Grid Support program, which is a key part of the state’s Strategic Reliability Reserve. This initiative helps increase energy supplies during challenging times like heat waves, wildfires, and other extreme events. Thanks to the efforts of aggregators who enroll tens of thousands of batteries, the program plays a crucial role in stabilizing the grid and reducing the risk of rolling blackouts.

Sunrun, as the largest participant in the Demand Side Grid Support program, will handle the monitoring and dispatching of enrolled customers’ batteries. Those who join the CalReady program through Sunrun will receive compensation for sharing their stored solar energy with the grid while Sunrun takes care of all the dispatching details.

Sunrun CEO Mary Powell said that “a typical customer won’t even notice that they’re sharing their stored power to bolster the grid while getting compensated for doing so.”

CalReady will support California’s grid every day from 4 to 9 pm, from May through October, when energy demand peaks and the grid is most susceptible to outages. Sunrun will ensure that customers’ batteries always maintain a minimum backup reserve of 20% to keep their homes powered during local outages.

Chris Rauscher, Sunrun’s head of grid services, explained:

Just like how a centralized fossil fuel power plant is controlled and dispatched by a single entity, so too is Sunrun’s CalReady virtual power plant – making it a powerful contributor to California’s grid. Because CalReady is a distributed resource spread across households statewide, it’s more resilient and adaptable when compared to a physical power plant.

Throughout the five-month program, the California Energy Commission may tap into Sunrun’s enrolled solar + storage systems up to 35 times to provide extra energy to the grid. Sunrun’s CalReady program enrollment is still open, and participation is expected to increase.

Sunrun’s Q1 results, released yesterday, reported a significant jump in storage attachment rates – reaching 50% on installations, up from 15% in the same period last year. The company installed 207.2 megawatt-hours during the quarter.

To date, Sunrun has installed over 102,000 solar and storage systems, representing more than 1.5 gigawatt hours of stored energy capacity.

Read more: Check out the ‘world’s first’ DC-to-DC solar-powered EV charger

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Young electric boat racing series E1 continues to garner star power as it continues its inaugural UIM World Championship season. Actor, producer, and musician Will Smith and his team, Westbrook Racing, have joined E1 to compete against several other big names in sports and entertainment.

The UIM E1 World Championship is a new electric racing boat series first announced back in 2022 that kicked off its inaugural season this past February with the Jeddah GP in Saudi Arabia. Since its inception, E1 co-founders Rodi Basso and Alejandro Agag have put together an impressive roster of team owners.

In the past year, we’ve seen E1 add teams owned by sports legends Rafael Nadal, Didier Drogba, and the NFL’s Tom Brady to the race card, as well as Formula 1 veteran Sergio Perez, superstar DJ Steve Aoki, and cricket star Virat Kohli who is responsible for Team Blue Rising.

In December 2023, the league announced musician Mark Anthony had joined as the owner of Team Miami, setting the playing field at eight teams. They would end up placing second in Jeddah behind Team Brady, with Team Rafa taking the podium in third.

Today, the E1 Series has announced another famous entertainer joining as a team owner – Will Smith.

Will Smith’s Westbrook Racing to compete in UIM E1 Series

Per a release from E1 earlier today, Oscar-winning actor Will Smith has joined the league as owner of Westbrook Racing, named after the Fresh Prince’s global entertainment company, Westbrook Inc. E1 states that the formation of the Westbrook Racing team aligns with Smith’s “affinity for electric and competitive sports with E1’s mission to accelerate sustainability in marine mobility.”

Despite the featured image above, we won’t see Will Smith competing on the water in an E1 Racebird, but his new team has already recruited its two drivers. Five-time Les Mans racer Lucas Ordoñez joins the squad alongside experience in SuperGT and Formula 3.

Ordoñez will compete alongside Sara Price – a professional racer and stuntwoman with 17 national motocross championships and racing experience in Extreme E and the Dakar Rally. Smith spoke about the opportunity to own a team in E1 and compete:

As a fan of racing, the opportunity to be part of the E1 fleet and play a role in realizing its broader vision got me very inspired. The entire Westbrook team is truly excited to bring Westbrook Racing to the water and join such an amazing group for this race.

This news comes at a perfect time as Will Smith’s team is scheduled to compete in E1’s second race, the Venice GP, which will take place this weekend, May 11 and 12. We will follow the nine-team GP and post a recap to see how Westbrook Racing fares in its first E1 electric boat event.

Donald Trump has reportedly told oil executives that he will end electric car incentives if they contribute $1 billion to his election campaign.

The former president has been all over the place with his comments on electric vehicles.

Most of the time, in his rallies, he has brought them up as a talking point to ridicule them – focusing on the premise that “don’t go far” and “charging is a pain”. He went as far as calling them a “hoax”.

But he has also claimed that he is “all for electric cars” and during his 2020 campaign, he tried to take credit for incentives put in place during the Obama administration.

In practice, the former president was trying to put in place policies to slow down electric car adoption – at the request of some automakers, to be fair. The Trump administration attempted to eliminate the tax credit for electric vehicles in the original version of their 2020 budget, though the provision never passed.

Furthermore, Trump was actively seeking to roll back vehicle emission standards that were encouraging automakers to produce more electric cars.

With this new 2024 campaign, the former president has been clearer about the fact that he is against any initiatives that would accelerate the rollout of electric vehicles.

Now, the Washington Post reports that it had sources in a meeting between Trump and oil executives in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club last month. In the report, the publication claimed that Trump made them an offer when asked about his plan recording environmental regulations:

Trump’s response stunned several of the executives in the room overlooking the ocean: You all are wealthy enough, he said, that you should raise $1 billion to return me to the White House. At the dinner, he vowed to immediately reverse dozens of President Biden’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted, according to people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.

The former president reportedly specifically mention rolling back policies on electric vehicles and wind energy.

Electrek’s Take

I don’t like to get too political at Electrek. Those who know me personally know I’m as apolitical as it gets. I don’t believe the biggest changes come from politics. I’m not biased toward any side in politics, but I am biased toward electric vehicles and I do like policies that encourage them, especially those that incentivize them in a way that represents their benefits for the environment. Since Trump has a real chance of becoming president again, it’s important to cover his views and policies on electric vehicles.

I think it’s pretty clear at this point that Trump would roll back incentives if reelected, which I would have no problem with as long as he implements a carbon tax to properly represent the cost of fossil fuel burning, but who are we kidding?

Even if you don’t believe in human’s contribution to climate change, you must at least believe to clean air?

Everyone agrees that burning fossil fuels is extremely polluting. That’s why you don’t start your car’s engine inside your garage. Now, that’s for a small, closed environment, but the science is also clear that this affects general air pollution when you have millions of cars in the same area, which is most cities today.

This air pollution has a massive health cost calculated in the billions of dollars in the US alone.

From this perspective alone, it makes sense to encourage the purchase of EVs over ICE vehicles. Then, there’s also the clear fact that the rest of the world is moving to EVs at an incredible pace.

A strong market helps a strong industry. If the US auto market falls behind in electrification, the US auto industry will also fall behind and it will be another manufacturing industry that the US is going to lose.

You don’t want to be the last country with a strong fossil fuel industry.