Mary Powell RUN

Chief Executive Officer & Director, SUNRUN INC

Tesla is focused on ‘ACCELERATING’ the energy transition, Sunrun CEO says

📅 Jun 26, 2026 Fox Business Clips 8 MIN 23 SEGMENTS · 2 SPEAKERS

Sunrun CEO Mary Powell discusses the groundbreaking partnership with Tesla and Renew Home to supply power for A.I. data ...

What Mary Powell said

Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.

Mary Powell, CEO of Sunrun, discussed the company's partnership with Tesla and Renew Home to build a 16-gigawatt virtual power plant using home batteries and smart devices to meet surging electricity demand from AI data centers. She said Sunrun has worked with Tesla for years, emphasizing Tesla's focus on accelerating the energy transition. Powell noted that collectively, the partners have access to about 9 million homes and 12 million devices, and have already returned $67 million to customers. She argued that utility infrastructure could take half a decade to a decade to build, while their solution can be brought online in months. Powell declined to speculate on acquisition by Tesla or Elon Musk, saying Sunrun is focused on leading in home power and returning value to shareholders. She acknowledged the need for all power sources, including nuclear, to meet demand, and highlighted the stock's 31% jump as a sign of the partnership's importance.

Key takeaways

Sunrun, Tesla, and Renew Home are building a 16-gigawatt virtual power plant using home batteries and smart devices.
The partnership has already returned $67 million to American customers.
Powell said the solution can bring power online in months, versus years for utility infrastructure.
Powell declined to comment on potential acquisition by Tesla or Elon Musk.
Sunrun's stock jumped 31% when the partnership was announced.

Numbers and commitments

Figure	What it refers to	Type	At
16 gigawatts	Total capacity of the virtual power plant	metric	1:16
9 million homes	Homes involved in the virtual power plant	metric	1:31
12 million devices	Devices involved in the virtual power plant	metric	1:31
$67 million	Revenue returned to customers	metric	2:23
40%	Projected increase in power demand	metric	3:47
31%	Stock price increase after announcement	metric	6:19

Chapters

0:00Partnership with Tesla
1:04Virtual power plant mechanics
2:23Customer benefits and revenue
3:47Speed to interconnection
4:55Regulatory and utility cooperation
5:40Acquisition speculation
6:19Stock market reaction
6:40Need for all power sources

Questions asked in this interview

0:40I would think that Tesla is a competitor to you, but you say that's not exactly the case?
1:28How many million homes is that?
3:09What has it been like to work with Elon Musk and this partnership?
4:55Now do you need to get permission?
5:40Do you ever see yourself being acquired by a Tesla or Elon Musk company? Would that be something?
6:40Where do you think the bulk of that comes from?

Cheryl 0:07 ↗

Forget chips. The next AI race is all about electricity. Home solar provider Sunrun is teaming up with Tesla and home energy platform Renew Home in a first-of-its-kind effort to tap millions of home batteries and smart devices to help power America's AI boom. The goal is to build a massive 16-gigawatt virtual power plant that can feed electricity to data centers without waiting for years for new plants to be built and established. Joining me now, first on Fox Business, is Sunrun CEO Mary Powell. Great to have you here.

Mary Powell 0:38 ↗

Wonderful to be with you.

Cheryl 0:40 ↗

I asked you this on the break. I would think that Tesla is a competitor to you, but you say that's not exactly the case?

Mary Powell 0:47 ↗

We've been working with Tesla for years getting storage into homes. Sunrun is really a leader in that regard, and Tesla is very, very focused on accelerating the energy transition and getting as much technology and product out there as possible. So we've had a long and strong partnership.

Cheryl 1:04 ↗

Talk to us about how this works. You're saying you'll tap into these devices and bring energy to the grid by tapping into millions of American homes.

Mary Powell 1:13 ↗

Yes.

Cheryl 1:14 ↗

Explain how that works?

Mary Powell 1:16 ↗

It's so cool. We are sitting on top of collectively over 16 gigawatts of energy. It's already sitting there.

Cheryl 1:28 ↗

How many million homes is that?

Mary Powell 1:31 ↗

In total, like 9 million homes. A lot of homes. I think 12 million devices. Sunrun has already, for years, been exporting energy back to the grid as a distributed power plant. I call us a distributed power plant because we are literally exporting energy back to the grid to help stabilize it, to make sure we meet peak demand in a really cost-effective way. But this is so exciting because it's about all three of us saying, oh my gosh, between the three of us, we have such an incredible solution for the moment in America right now, which is meeting the incredible growth and demand happening.

Cheryl 2:12 ↗

Just to drill down on this, we're talking about solar panels obviously, which you understand. Electric vehicle batteries, I mean this is...

12 more exchanges in this transcript

Cite this transcript

APA, MLA, BibTeX

APA

Powell, M. (2026, June 26). Tesla is focused on ‘ACCELERATING’ the energy transition, Sunrun CEO says [Interview transcript]. Fox Business Clips. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1044420/

MLA

Mary Powell. "Tesla is focused on ‘ACCELERATING’ the energy transition, Sunrun CEO says." Fox Business Clips, 26 Jun. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1044420/.

BibTeX

@misc{powell2026_1044420,
  author       = {Mary Powell},
  title        = {Tesla is focused on ‘ACCELERATING’ the energy transition, Sunrun CEO says},
  howpublished = {Interview transcript, Fox Business Clips. CEOInterviews.AI},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = {jun},
  url          = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1044420/},
  note         = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}

▶

Key Quotes (2)

“WE'VE BEEN WORKING WITH TESLA FOR YEARS GETTING STORAGE INTO HOMES. SUN RUN IS REALLY A LEADER IN THAT REGARD AND TESLA IS VERY, VERY FOCUSED ON ACCELERATING THE ENERGY TRANSITION AND GETTING AS MUCH TECHNOLOGY AND PRODUCT OUT THERE AS POSSIBLE. SO WE'VE HAD A LONG AND STRONG PARTNERSHIP.”

▶ 0:47

“THE UTILITIES ARE SPENDING BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN INFRASTRUCTURE. POWER DEMAND IS SUPPOSED TO GO UP 40%. 40%. SO THERE'S A MASSIVE AMOUNT THAT NEEDS TO GET BUILT AND IT'S REALLY HARD TO SEE HOW THAT COULD POSSIBLY GET BUILT IN ANYTHING LESS THAN HALF A DECADE TO A DECADE.”

▶ 3:49 POLICY

Mentioned in this interview

Tesla TSLA: Long-term partner in home storage and energy transition

Renew Home: Partner in the virtual power plant initiative

Elon Musk Founder, CEO, Chief Technology Officer & Board Chair: Powell declined to comment on acquisition by his companies

SpaceX: Mentioned as recently public with cash for acquisitions

About Mary Powell

Mary Powell, Chief Executive Officer and Director of Sunrun, discussed the company's second-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings in an August 2026 call. She stated that Sunrun has over 4.6 gigawatt hours of storage capacity installed and described the company as the largest residential independent power producer. Powell said that "speed to power is critical" and that Sunrun is well positioned in a market that is structurally short power, where speed to power is a bottleneck. During the call, she also discussed the company's exploration of distributed compute, noting that Sunrun has a large number of customers who generate and store their own power, and that allocating that power to GPUs in homes offers attractive returns. In an April 2025 interview on Fox Business, Powell discussed a partnership with Tesla and Renew Home to build a 16-gigawatt virtual power plant aimed at supplying electricity to data centers. She said Sunrun has worked with Tesla for years on home storage and described Tesla as focused on accelerating the energy transition. Powell noted that utilities are spending billions on infrastructure and that power demand is projected to rise 40%, adding that it is difficult to see how that infrastructure could be built in less than half a decade to a decade. She said the partnership could help bring electrons to the grid quickly, particularly for data centers, and that it provides Americans with independence, control, and financial stability while allowing them to earn revenue from the technologies.

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