California home battery grid program targets an August 2026 launch
A California home battery grid program from CalChoice, formally California Choice Energy Authority, targets a full public launch by the end of August 2026. CalChoice is a community choice aggregator, a public agency a city or county sets up under a 2002 law, Assembly Bill 117, to buy electricity for residents while the utility still delivers power. CalChoice announced on March 18, 2026, that it is building a distributed energy resources management system, called a DERMS, with Lunar Energy, software that lets an agency coordinate customer owned devices, starting with home batteries, for the grid. The launch target falls about 5 and a half months after the announcement, a span this site calculates from the 2 dates CalChoice itself states.
CalChoice states all 3 months about its own program. This site plots them by month number to show the span between them.
Show the numbers
| Board authorization | 2 |
| Public announcement | 3 |
| Targeted full launch | 8 |
Rob Johnson, interim chief executive of CalChoice, explained the reason.
A virtual power plant allows us to monitor and manage a fleet of energy assets to shift load when power is most expensive.
Rob Johnson, interim chief executive of California Choice Energy Authority, called CalChoice. Source 1.
A virtual power plant, industry language for this kind of program, links many home batteries so an agency can draw on them together as though they were one power plant.
CalChoice has not yet set a capacity target, a payment amount, or a participation rule for households joining. The program starts by folding already installed batteries into one platform, then sets participation rules and payments, and later adds smart thermostats and electric vehicle chargers.
Other California agencies already run bigger battery grid programs
Ava Community Energy, another community choice aggregator, serves 2 million customers across Alameda County and the cities of Tracy, Stockton and Lathrop. It announced its own virtual power plant initiative on April 24, 2025, built with Lunar Energy software called Gridshare, growing out of a 2020 pilot where 1,200 customers discharged home batteries during peak evening hours. It pays electric vehicle owners up to 100 dollars a year for charging that shifts to cheaper hours. Central Coast Community Energy runs a similar program of its own.
California battery storage is growing on several fronts at once
California battery storage is also growing outside these software deals. The state has 300,000 solar charged home batteries installed, with about 2,000 more added every week, as of April 7, 2026. Mortenson built the Tumbleweed Energy Storage Facility in Kern County, commissioned June 18, 2026, bought by 8 California community choice aggregators. It can deliver 125 megawatts, a measure of how fast power moves, and store 1,000 megawatt hours, a measure of how much energy it holds. Sonoma Clean Power opened a smaller project near Ukiah on July 14, 2026, 4 megawatts and 16 megawatt hours.
Source 3 states both project sizes. This site calculates the gap between them, about 31 times.
Show the numbers
| Tumbleweed Storage Facility | 125 |
| Sonoma Clean Power project | 4 |
The California Senate Committee on Energy, Utilities and Commerce approved Senate Bill 913, the Clean Local Power Act, on April 7, 2026, to let batteries, solar systems, chargers and heat pumps earn more from the grid. The bill would have the California Public Utilities Commission set a method for crediting the power these devices send back, counting more of it toward the resource adequacy program, which plans for enough power to meet demand.
Jon Hart, policy director of the California Solar and Storage Association, made the cost case.
Tapping solar charged batteries and other customer devices when they are the cheapest option is an essential strategy for making energy affordable in California.
Jon Hart, policy director of the California Solar and Storage Association. Source 4.