Tesla Powerwall users may become part of Texas utility program

A Tesla Powerwall, installed in this home, stores energy to be used during an outage or high demand times when electric rates are higher.

If you own a Tesla Powerwall, a battery pack sold for homes by the EV automaker, you may soon become part of what the company is calling a "virtual power plant." Tesla received the green light to create a "statewide market design pilot" policy for a virtual power plant, or VPP, according to Tesla's U.S. markets policy lead Arushi Sharma Frank on LinkedIn.

This means Texas owners of Powerwalls, which serve as a backup power supply by storing energy, would allow the state power grid to pull energy from the batteries when the grid has need, according to Tesla and tech industry publication electrek. Tesla launched a VPP program last year in California, where customers would be compensated $2 per kilowatt hour when power is shared during times of peak demand.

Homeowners in the California program could receive anywhere between $10 to $60 each time they shared power. It not yet clear how much Texas Powerwall owners would receive, or other details of the policy, but Tesla lobbied for 200 voluntary participants in May to test the program. Texas saw a record-breaking heat wave in July.

Frank said on LinkedIn that Tesla had "unfaltering support" from the Public Utility Commission of Texas and Electric Reliability Council of Texas.

"We at Tesla cannot wait to get started with bringing the VPP experience to Texas consumers," Frank said in the post.