If a new coalition has its way, more North Texans may soon have the ability to turn their homes into “virtual power plants” to enhance grid stability and lower costs.

On Tuesday, Abundance Energy, sonnen and Energywell announced a collaboration meant to bring the behind-the-meter, battery-enabled technology to the Lone Star State.

A virtual power plant, or VPP, is a network of decentralized energy sources working together to generate, store and manage electricity.

Texas’ economy is booming, but the power grid’s reliability in the face of soaring demand and extreme weather is regularly cited as one of the biggest risks to the state’s outlook.

“The rapid load growth and market volatility in North Texas makes it one of the best places in the country to launch this kind of technology,” Energywell CEO Michael Fallquist said.

“Residents here will be among the first to access this advanced VPP platform, unlocking value from their solar and storage systems while helping stabilize the grid during heatwaves, storms, and surging demand.”

The smart technology — which runs on sustainable energy — is an integration of Energywell’s Proton platform, and sonnen’s advanced VPP battery control solutions.

Each battery is continuously managed in response to market price signals, customer usage and solar generation.

Together, they dynamically balance energy supply and demand to maximize value for both the grid and the customer, the companies said in the announcement.

“This program is designed for regions like D-FW, where extreme weather, rapid development, and rising energy costs are converging,” Abundance Energy CEO Thomas Mandry said.

“We’re giving homeowners a way to protect themselves from outages, lock in long-term savings, and contribute to a more resilient grid. It’s not just about clean energy — it’s about reliable energy that works when North Texans need it most.”

The mix of VPP sources can include home batteries, smart devices and solar panels.

“Our VPP solutions enable customers to actively participate in the energy market while maintaining resilience in their homes,” Blake Richetta, chairman and CEO of sonnen, said.

“With Abundance Energy, and Energywell, we’re setting a new standard for residential energy management.”

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages most of the state’s electricity grid, approved a virtual power plant program —the Aggregated Distributed Energy Resource pilot — in 2022. A year later, Tesla launched the first two VPPs, involving Dallas-area Oncor customers and Houston-area CenterPoint Energy customers.

In recent months, other strides toward creating more of the power alternatives in Texas homes have occurred.

Earlier this year, sonnen and SOLRITE announced the launch of a VPP power purchase agreement that offers solar and battery juice for homes, at no upfront cost.

A couple months earlier, Houston-based NRG Energy said it planned to distribute and install hundreds of thousands of VPP-enabled smart thermostats, in partnership with Renew Home, to create a nearly 1 gigawatt AI-powered VPP enabled by Google Cloud technology.

This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.