Keep Calm during Outages with Brightbox™ in California

Brightbox is a holistic solar battery service that offers you clean, safer, reliable backup power so you can have better control over your home energy use and cost.

Brightbox allows you to store the excess energy your solar energy system produces during the day and use it when you need it most—such as in the evening, at night or when the electric grid fails due to physical damage or an extreme weather event.

Aside from very rare exceptions, Sunrun’s Brightbox service includes rooftop solar panels. When the sun is out, Brightbox stores 100% clean, renewable, home-grown solar power directly from the rooftop panels so you can use it when you need it most.

Brightbox offers two solar energy battery options: Tesla Powerwall and LG Chem. Both are industry-leading lithium-ion batteries. Compared to lead acid batteries, solar batteries that use lithium-ion technology are more efficient and have longer life cycles, making them one of the best energy storage options when going solar. 

An LG Chem solar battery can back up parts of your home, while a Tesla Powerwall can back up your entire home. There are also differences in software and app functionality.

Request a free quote to get connected with a Sunrun Solar Advisor and determine which backup solution will best meet your energy needs.

Just like home solar systems, the size of your rechargeable solar battery system is determined by your unique energy needs and habits. Certain factors, such as the amount of electricity you use at home and the devices and appliances you want to back up, will play a key role when selecting the right home battery solution for you.

The installation of Brightbox is a relatively simple process. It’s about the size of a water heater, and the home battery system is mounted on a wall—usually inside your garage or outside of your home.

With Brightbox, your home solar battery will automatically disconnect from the grid in the event of a power outage and restore power in your home in a matter of seconds. Your rooftop solar panels will continue to recharge your battery when the sun is up until the grid is up and running again.

Most residential batteries are installed and configured with baseline settings by your solar installer. Solar batteries can last anywhere between 10 and 15 years, and manufacturers typically offer a 10-year warranty. Brightbox is more than a home battery: It’s a holistic service that includes professional maintenance and monitoring for 25 years with select plans.

You can monitor your battery’s performance via desktop or mobile with the mySunrun app. Sunrun also manages the battery remotely using proprietary software to make sure it’s running as it should, and it automatically updates your battery’s settings to save you as much money as possible.

Our monthly lease and prepaid plans come with proactive monitoring and maintenance on us. If we notice that your Brightbox or solar panels aren’t working at their full capacity, we’ll send an expert over to fix it without you lifting a finger.

California has several incentives for going solar, including the Self-Generation Incentive Program (SGIP). Depending on the size of the battery and when it’s purchased, solar battery owners can earn a rebate of approximately $250 for every kilowatt-hour (kWh) stored by their home battery system.

Another major incentive for people who purchase a home solar system comes in the form of federal tax credits included in the Inflation Reduction Act. Qualified homes can receive up to 30% of the price of their home system in the form of tax credits.

We recommend contacting a tax professional to most accurately determine the impact of the federal tax credit and local tax credits on your taxes.

Learn more about California solar incentives.

You can use a portable backup generator, however, Sunrun doesn’t offer backup generators. If you’re interested in installing a portable generator, you can contact a local electrician or a residential power generator installation company. These experts can recommend a backup generator that will be appropriate for your home.

Our rechargeable solar battery systems are designed to keep you on-grid during normal service times while still providing reliable backup power during a stormy day or at night. This is the most reliable and economical way to use your Brightbox system, and it’s the one most strongly recommended by Sunrun’s service experts.

At this time, Brightbox is only available to new Sunrun solar and storage customers. We can’t install rooftop solar panels or a solar battery if you already have an existing solar installation, or if it isn’t offered in your area.