California Advances SB 913 to Open Grid Market to Batteries
California has 300,000 solar-charged batteries installed behind customer meters. Two thousand more go in every week. On April 7, the state Senate’s Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee voted to let them compete for grid reliability payments for the first time.
SB 913, the Clean Local Power Act, advanced out of committee and now heads to the Senate floor. The bill, introduced by Senator Josh Becker of Menlo Park, requires the California Public Utilities Commission to build permanent market pathways for aggregated distributed energy resources to qualify as resource adequacy capacity. The CPUC would have until June 30, 2027 to finalize the rules.
This is an update to “One Hundred Megawatts Per Month,” published April 3, which covered the bill’s provisions before the hearing. The committee vote moves SB 913 from proposal to active legislation.
The 300,000 number. Jon Hart, policy director at the California Solar and Storage Association, put the installed base in context during his testimony: “California now has 300,000 solar-charged batteries installed, with 2,000 more added every week. They are already reducing costs, but we are not maximizing their potential.”
That is roughly 2.4 gigawatts of distributed storage capacity sitting behind California meters, based on average residential system sizes of 8 to 10 kilowatt-hours. The weekly additions alone represent 16 to 20 megawatts of new capacity every seven days. None of it currently qualifies for resource adequacy payments.
What the bill changes. Under current CPUC rules, customer-sited batteries receive credit only for reducing their owner’s consumption. A battery that charges from rooftop solar and discharges into the grid during a heat wave gets no compensation for the exported energy. SB 913 mandates that the CPUC, in coordination with the California Independent System Operator and the California Energy Commission, develop methodology that credits energy exported from customer devices to the grid.
The distinction is structural. Reducing your own demand during a crisis is useful. Injecting stored energy into the grid during a crisis is a grid service. Current rules treat both the same, which means the second one does not happen at scale. SB 913 creates the financial signal that makes grid export rational for battery owners.
The DSGS precedent held up. Supporters pointed to the Demand Side Grid Support program, created during the 2022 heat emergencies, which demonstrated that aggregated customer batteries can deliver over 1,000 megawatts of dispatchable capacity during peak events. DSGS proved the technical capability. SB 913 converts that proof into permanent market access.
The difference between a program and a market matters. DSGS participants receive administrative payments through a temporary program that requires periodic reauthorization. RA capacity commands contract-based payments through competitive procurement. The first is a favor the state asks of battery owners. The second is a service battery owners sell to the grid.
No recorded opposition. The committee advanced the bill without organized opposition on the record. Utility positions on the bill have not been publicly stated. The absence of opposition at the committee stage is notable but not conclusive. Bills that restructure capacity markets tend to draw sharper scrutiny at the appropriations and floor stages, where the financial implications receive closer examination.
What comes next. SB 913 now moves to the full Senate. If it passes, it crosses to the Assembly, where a companion measure is already in play. AB 1975, the Grid Utilization Act introduced by Assemblymember Nick Schultz, takes a parallel approach focused on maximizing existing grid capacity through load flexibility programs. The two bills together represent a coordinated legislative push to treat distributed storage as grid infrastructure rather than customer equipment.
The CPUC rulemaking deadline of June 30, 2027 means that even if SB 913 passes both chambers this session, the actual market rules would not take effect for at least 14 months. During that time, California will add roughly another 150,000 batteries behind customer meters at current installation rates.
Senator Becker framed the economics simply: “Instead of always building expensive new infrastructure to meet just a few peak hours of demand, we should be making better use of the resources we already have.”
The resources already exist. The committee vote determined they should count.
Sources
California Legislature Considers VPPs and Solar-Charged Battery Compensation (Solartex)
California Legislature Approves VPP Bill to Reduce Energy Rates (Solar Builder)
Becker Introduces SB 913 to Make Better Use of Customer-Owned Clean Power (Senator Josh Becker)
SB 913: Resource Adequacy for Affordable Electricity (The Climate Center)
California Bill Would Unlock Distributed Energy Participation in Grid Resource Adequacy Market (pv magazine USA)