AI Thermostats Pitched for Texas Homes to Relieve Stressed Grid

Three of the biggest names in US home energy automation are coming together to offer some relief to the beleaguered Texas electrical grid.

Power supplier NRG Energy Inc. is partnering with Renew Home LLC to distribute about 650,000 artificial intelligence-enabled thermostats that use Alphabet Inc.’s Google Cloud technology over the next decade. The initiative, announced Thursday, aims to shave nearly 1 gigawatt of electricity demand — enough to power 200,000 Texas homes or about 1% of the record summer demand seen this year on the state grid.

“The entire industry has been built to serve the peak load on ...