California SB 913 Lets Home Batteries Earn Money
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- Senator Josh Becker introduced SB 913 to let utilities treat residential batteries as power plants, enabling virtual power plants and homeowner payments.
- California Public Utilities Commission reports that California customers add about 8,000 home batteries each month, roughly 100 MW of new storage capacity.
- Advanced Energy United says current policies undervalue distributed resources, missing an opportunity to address the state's energy affordability crisis.
- Deploy Action argues SB 913 updates market rules so lower‑cost distributed resources can compete fairly and deliver reliability, boosting grid value for ratepayers.
- Senate Energy Committee voted to advance SB 913 on April 7, 2026.
- Senate Committee on Appropriations now reviews the amended bill, with a vote not yet scheduled.
Why it matters: Homeowners with batteries stand to earn payments from utilities, while gas peaker plants lose market share; the bill opens a 100 MW monthly supply of distributed storage, cutting peak‑demand costs and emissions.
