NRG Energy announced it is partnering with Renew Home, a virtual power plant (VPP) company, to upgrade its residential VPP capabilities with the aim to distribute hundreds of thousands of VPP-enabled smart thermostats by 2035 and create a nearly 1 GW AI-powered VPP – enabled by Google Cloud technology.

NRG and Renew Home expect to roll out their VPP program to Texas customers in the spring of 2025. Earlier this year, Renew Home launched out of the combination of Google’s Nest Renew service and OhmConnect, which the new company said brought together millions of customers across the nation.

Texas is experiencing an increase in peak energy demand due to population, load growth, and extreme weather, reaching a demand surge of 85 GW in 2023, NRG said, and a 1 GW VPP delivers capacity equivalent to 200,000 homes during peak demand.

To build the VPP, NRG, in partnership with Renew Home, plans to offer Vivint and Nest smart thermostats, including installation, at no cost to eligible customers across NRG’s retail electricity providers and plans. These thermostats are meant to make subtle automatic HVAC adjustments to help customers shift their energy use to times when electricity is less constrained, less expensive, and cleaner. Over time, the parties expect to add devices like batteries and electric vehicles to the VPP.

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