Three leading clean energy technology companies—Sunrun, Tesla, and Renew Home—say they can free up more than 16,000 megawatts of grid capacity for data centres and utilities by combining their networks into what could become the country’s largest virtual power plant.

“The grid of the 1800s cannot power the innovation of 2026,” Sunrun CEO Mary Powell said in a release. “Americans deserve innovation that does not create unnecessary energy costs.”

She added: “When data centres are asked to throttle down operations during the most expensive and stressful hours of the day, we can activate our distributed power plants to help provide them the power they need while also protecting American families from footing the bill for costly new infrastructure.”

Sunrun, Tesla, and Renew Home each deliver key energy and efficiency technologies such as rooftop solar, home batteries, and grid-responsive smart thermostats and water heaters. Under their new agreement, the three companies say they can link those technologies into a network capable of delivering more than 16 gigawatts of flexible energy capacity to hyperscalers—large companies operating data centres—and utilities around the country.

The release frames the approach as a faster, cheaper option to physical infrastructure, one that “creates headroom” on the grid by freeing up transmission capacity, easing congestion, and “extending the duration and depth of available capacity.”

The companies haven’t signed on any customers yet, and only announced that they are looking to start supplying this added capacity, reports Heatmap.

But Paul Dickson, Sunrun’s president and chief revenue officer, told Canary Media the batteries, solar panels, and thermostats that will make up the VPP are already installed in homes and businesses. By linking them together, the agreement will manage their energy consumption and storage to increase grid capacity.

Dickson added that the agreement helps ease the challenge of supplying electricity during times of peak demand, which he called a “bottleneck” for data centre development.

The agreement is the second of its type announced recently. It follows another deal between Google and Voltus aimed at boosting capacity by paying power customers to reduce consumption peak demand periods.