PG&E, Rewiring America and Google Launch First-of-its-Kind Virtual Power Plant to Help Lower Costs for All Customers

Initiative aims to deliver hundreds of deeply discounted home energy upgrades and enroll over 20,000 existing energy devices installed in customers' homes

OAKLAND, Calif., Sept. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) today announced SHARE (Smart Home Assets for Reliability and Efficiency), a first-of-its-kind Virtual Power Plant (VPP) designed to help communities benefit from rising electric demand, while improving affordability and reliability for all customers.

Together, PG&E, Rewiring America, Google, Carrier Global Corporation, Tesla, Sunrun, Renew Home, Demand Side Analytics, encoord and other partners will deploy the new VPP—a coordinated network of home batteries, smart devices, and battery-enabled heat pumps that reduce energy use during periods of high demand—in Bay Area communities.

The model is designed to create additional capacity, support reliability and help put downward pressure on rates while participating households save money through smarter energy management with next-generation home technology. SHARE is a first-of-its-kind VPP proof-of-concept that combines enrollment of existing home energy devices with regional deployment of privately funded new electrification technologies to address growing electric demand.

"This is about delivering power at the speed our economy demands—while improving affordability and reliability for the people we serve," said Chelle Izzi, Chief Commercial Officer, PG&E. "SHARE shows how investing in customers can unlock grid capacity, support growth, and bring real benefits back to communities."

A New Approach to Meeting Rising Demand
Electric demand is rising across the country as more businesses, vehicles, homes and buildings rely on electricity. PG&E continues to aggressively build and modernize the electric system to meet long-term growth, including needed transmission and distribution investments.

SHARE adds a complementary, near-term pathway: investing directly in homes located where energy demand is growing. This proof-of-concept VPP is designed to demonstrate how targeted investments in homes can help: 

• Improve reliability and lower costs by making better use of everyday, flexible home energy resources alongside continued grid investment
• Expand capacity during periods of high demand
• Support new and growing energy users more quickly

PG&E is working with Tesla, Sunrun, and Renew Home to enroll nearly 21,000 existing flexible energy devices into the program. This will allow participating households to gain new ways to manage their energy costs and earn rewards for the smart features they already use, while shifting demand during peak periods helping make better use of existing infrastructure, benefiting customers across the region. The resource is expected to begin supporting the grid as early as fall 2026.

"Home energy devices hold enormous, untapped capacity that can meaningfully improve affordability and reliability for all Californians," said Mary Powell, CEO of Sunrun. "This initiative unlocks that potential while giving customers an opportunity to share in the economic benefits of helping improve their local grid."

Carrier is the initiative's launch partner for the new deployments, providing its battery-enabled heat pump solution, including the Carrier Performance™ Series Variable-Speed Heat Pump with EnerSync™, that automatically stores and shifts energy use to help lower costs for customers, maintain comfort, and support grid reliability during periods of peak demand.

"As energy demand grows, SHARE demonstrates how Carrier can help deliver distributed capacity with the firmness to scale as a fast and reliable grid resource," said Hakan Yilmaz, President, Carrier Energy & Chief Sustainability Officer. "Carrier's battery-enabled HVAC technology brings together our trusted comfort, market presence and dealer scale to help deliver homeowner value and reliable grid flexibility."

Eligible customers in Santa Clara and Alameda counties will have the opportunity to receive:

• New Carrier high-efficiency, battery-enabled heat pumps
• Lower monthly energy bills through smarter energy management
• Greater comfort and improved home resilience

All told, these resources will be orchestrated into a distributed power plant by PG&E and Demand Side Analytics with the goal of unlocking additional capacity on the regional electric transmission system.

Designed to Protect Customers
SHARE reflects a shared commitment to responsible energy growth and is structured so that existing customers benefit from growing grid capacity needs. The program will be fully funded by Google to support customer incentives, technology deployment, and program delivery.

"As demand scales, our current electricity grid can bridge the gap—if we optimize it correctly," said Amanda Peterson Corio, Global Head of Energy & Power at Google. "This program unlocks the potential of local distributed energy resources to strengthen grid capacity and resiliency while delivering meaningful benefits for local communities."

Rewiring America will work directly with households to deploy and enroll energy-saving electric technologies into SHARE that can serve as flexible grid resources while improving the customer experience. They will also work closely with local installers to ensure projects meet high quality and performance standards.

"This initiative shows how households can be part of the energy solution," said Ari Matusiak, Founder and CEO of Rewiring America. "By helping families upgrade their homes with efficient electric technologies, we can lower costs, improve comfort, and optimize California's grid capacity at the same time."

PG&E will lead planning, analysis, and validation to evaluate customer impacts, system performance and long-term benefits.

A Model for California—and Beyond
SHARE represents a new way for utilities, customers and technology partners to work together to help meet electricity growth reliably and affordably through smarter utilization of the grid. This location-based approach is designed to inform future solutions for transmission constraints, local capacity challenges and rising demand across the electric system.

Over time, the proof of concept could expand beyond residential customers to include commercial, industrial, and utility-scale applications—supporting economic growth, improving grid utilization and lowering emissions.

PG&E and Rewiring America will begin reaching out to eligible customers starting fall 2026. SHARE is expected to run through 2027, with initial findings from the program expected to be shared in late 2026 or early 2027.

To learn more and explore program eligibility, visit https://energyshare.rewiringamerica.org/

About PG&E
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE: PCG), is a combined natural gas and electric utility serving more than sixteen million people across 70,000 square miles in Northern and Central California. For more information, visit pge.com, pge.com/news, and pge.com/innovation.     

About Google
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Through products and platforms like Search, Maps, Gmail, Android, Google Play, Google Cloud, Chrome, and YouTube, Google plays a meaningful role in the daily lives of billions of people and has become one of the most widely-known companies in the world. Google is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.

About Rewiring America 
Rewiring America puts American households at the center of an affordable, resilient, all-electric future. We partner with policymakers, industry leaders, manufacturers, workers, and communities to strengthen the electric grid, lower energy prices, and build Homegrown Energy solutions for all.

SOURCE Pacific Gas and Electric Company