🌐 There’s a New Clean Energy Grid in Town—And It’s Your House

The Next Big Energy Shift Is Happening at Home

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how batteries are rapidly deployed on the energy grid and inside factories. They charge when solar and wind energy power the grid and discharge when fossil fuels would otherwise take over.

The speed at which commercial-scale batteries are being adopted defies what anyone could have imagined a decade ago.

It’s part of the clean energy revolution accelerating so quickly yet often out of view that it’s hard to grasp fully.

But now that revolution is getting closer. Its next destination is your house. What that portends is momentous.

Most of us have no idea what a kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity is. “It’s that thing on our home energy bill.”

But do we really know? Or is it like the timing belt in our car or the inlet valve in the dishwasher? Something we probably should understand better because we’re adults, damn it, but, well, we just don't.

But there are a lot of companies betting that this is about to change.

They’re betting that you and I will soon consider a dollar per kilowatt-hour like we consider a dollar per gallon of gas.

Pro Tip: A kilowatt hour (kWh) is equal to 1,000 watts of power used for one hour. Totally clear, right?

This shift in understanding energy usage is the result of a rapidly changing landscape enabling homeowners to not just save but earn through renewable energy and electrification. Couple that with increasingly consumer-friendly technology that puts savings on autopilot and participation in the palm of your hand.

That brings us to GoodLeap, the most valuable private company operating in the home solar, battery storage, and energy efficiency markets today.

What’s striking is that GoodLeap doesn’t make the solar panels or batteries, nor does it install them. Yet, the company has over one million customers.

Since 2018, when the home solar market really took off, GoodLeap has financed the revolution. Originating more than $30 billion in financing for home sustainable solutions, GoodLeap commands a $12 billion valuation, putting it atop the list of climate tech unicorns. 

The shifting landscape of opportunity for homeowners starts with solar, which is why GoodLeap is at its center.

How GoodLeap Transformed the Solar Market

GoodLeap’s impact on the solar market can’t be overstated. It took 50 years for home solar to reach 5 million installations in the U.S. by 2024—a slow, lengthy process.

But let’s look closer: in 2017, there were only about a third as many homes with solar as there are today. The rapid growth happened over the last eight years.

So what changed?

Conventional wisdom holds that home solar became cheaper as technology improved. Yet, nearly all of those decreases occurred earlier this century and had plateaued by the time installations skyrocketed.

The systems themselves haven’t become cheaper. Average home solar systems have cost around $25,000 for nearly a decade, with payback periods stretching from 8 to 10 years or beyond. Home solar has been and remains a significant investment.

What about federal solar tax credits? Haven’t they influenced the growth rates? The U.S. has a twenty-year history with home solar tax credits. There’s been ebb and flow, but they’ve largely remained intact (you can read about it here).

Starting in 2018, financing these systems became easier—not because of a new government policy but largely due to GoodLeap.

GoodLeap’s founder, Hayes Barnard, a longtime home solar industry veteran, unlocked exponential growth by focusing on three key insights:

1. Consumers wanted financing decisions in minutes and installation as easy as ordering an Uber.

2. Local solar contractors needed improved system design, workflow, and project management tools to match consumer expectations.

3. Financial institutions wanted to invest in solar but needed larger loan packages—in increments of $30-$40 million—to make the investment worthwhile.

Barnard knew it was friction, not price, that was holding back the industry. So GoodLeap built a consumer-friendly fintech app to fix it. Today, that looks like:

✅ Instant financing approvals—Homeowners can apply, get approved, and know for exactly how much in minutes with minimal personal data required.
✅ A fully digital home energy marketplace—Homeowners can purchase equipment—solar, batteries, smart thermostats, heat pumps, etc.— and connect with contractors to install it.
✅ A platform for 5,000+ contractors—Contractors get tools to streamline design, proposals, and workflow management.
✅ Institutional-grade financing models—Banks and investors gain confidence in underwriting the residential side of the clean energy economy.

By making solar and home energy upgrades easy, transparent, and fast, GoodLeap has accelerated adoption across the country.

From Financing Sustainable Solutions to Managing Home Energy

Now, Hayes Bernard sees an even bigger opportunity—to transform GoodLeap from a residential clean energy financing company into an energy management company.

On the surface, that sounds numbingly dull, but probe deeper, and you start to see why many companies are pursuing a new multi-billion dollar opportunity to manage the energy in our homes.

Here’s why:

1. Renewable energy: Options like solar and geothermal are becoming increasingly attractive and viable for homeowners, with market adoption projected to accelerate.

2. Intelligent home devices: Smart thermostats, electric heat pumps, and even induction stovetops that double as battery storage (see Impulse and Copper) are gaining market share and can all connect to the grid.

3. Home batteries: Batteries manage on-site renewables, store energy from the grid when it’s cheap, sell it back during peak demand hours, and provide peace of mind when extreme weather strikes.

4. Utility Integration: Utilities are eager to tap into these assets, paying homeowners to contribute to grid stability and avoid firing up expensive, carbon-emitting peaker plants.

Smart Recommendations and the Growth of Virtual Power Plants

Leveraging the scale and power demands of its growing customer base, GoodLeap is poised to lead the clean energy transition far beyond simple financing.

Beyond the features listed above, when customers open the GoodLeap App today, they discover an ecosystem of home products designed to manage and reduce energy consumption. The company’s AI engine, which now gleans insights from the million+ customers already on its platform, informs personalized recommendations.

As customers embrace smart technology and electrification, GoodLeap weaves their home assets into a Virtual Power Plant (VPP), connecting thousands of homes together to supply power to the energy grid when utilities need it or throttle it down during peak energy time periods.

GoodGrid, as Good Leap calls its VPP, is already up and running in California and paying customers who enroll.

Ask Hayes Barnard about his business superpower and he’ll tell you it’s his ability to recruit world-class talent and empower them to execute on a bold vision.

That’s where Dan Lotano, GoodLeap’s COO, comes into play.

Dan knows as much as anyone about how energy grids are transforming to embrace the clean energy future.

Before joining GoodLeap, Dan spent 15 years at NextEra Energy, the nation’s largest energy utility and largest producer of renewable energy. He eventually rose to Vice President of Data Centers, Mobility, and Distributed-Generation.

Solar and Electrification Should Be as Easy as Ordering From an App

Dan knows that for clean energy adoption to scale, it has to be simple. GoodLeap is building on its core insight about creating a frictionless experience so homeowners can:

✅ See their home’s energy performance in real-time—no more guessing about bills and usage.
✅ Receive tailored upgrade recommendations based on location, climate, and energy consumption.
✅ Enroll in Virtual Power Plant programs that pay them for reducing or shifting their energy demand—automatically, with zero hassle.

His task: build the technology that makes consumers more informed, contractors better at servicing consumers, and all homes two-way grid-connected to accelerate the clean energy future. 

"This transformation is occurring more rapidly than many anticipate," says Dan. "We're discussing not only energy savings but also homeowners earning income and contractors elevating their services in real-time."

So, are we really about to understand what kilowatt of energy is actually worth? Dan thinks so. He talks about that as part of GoodLeap’s energy management business on this week’s Supercool podcast.

Listen to this podcast episode on Apple, Spotify, and all other platforms.

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Number of the week: 500

That’s the number of Virtual Power Plants now operating across the U.S.

Quote of the week:

“We’re not just helping homeowners go solar or install batteries—we’re giving them the tools to manage their energy for life.”

- Dan Lotano, COO, Good Leap

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Related

A climate tech investor I met during Plantd’s seed round four years ago recently asked me about 2025 trends. Virtual Power Plants are at the top of my list.

They’ve been on my radar since episode 2 of the Supercool podcast last summer when I spoke with Zach Randall, VP of Sales at ES Solar. We covered how Utah now runs one of the most innovative VPPs in the U.S., paying homeowners to install grid-connected batteries. Zach explained how home batteries and smart devices finally align the financial interests of utilities, solar-plus-battery installers (like ES Solar), and homeowners. More deployment means more savings—or earnings—for everyone.

But it’s not just homes—Virtual Power Plants are taking off in commercial buildings too.

Al Subbloie, CEO of Budderfly, made a compelling case on the pod for why his company will soon run the largest VPP network in the U.S. Budderfly’s Energy-as-a-Service model already powers 7,000+ fast-food restaurants—including McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and KFC—along with fitness chains like Orangetheory. The goal? To weave these energy-intensive businesses into a massive, grid-connected Virtual Power Plant.

BrainBox AI sees the same opportunity—this time in office buildings, warehouses, and retail shops. CEO Sam Ramadori joined Supercool to share how the company’s AI-powered tech is transforming building management.

BrainBox AI acts as the central nervous system for over 15,000 buildings, automating and optimizing HVAC systems to cut energy use by up to 25%. Now that it’s embedded in so many buildings, Ramadori envisions connecting them into the smartest, most responsive VPP yet.

And this is just the beginning.

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