For Base Power, the real money is almost certainly in so-called grid-balancing operations. Thanks to the way Texas’ power market works, the startup can be paid — handsomely in some cases — to tap the batteries it has installed to send electricity back to the grid.
By installing residential batteries, Base Power appears to have found a speedy way to build a megawatt-class fleet of batteries, sometimes called a “virtual power plant.” While Texas is home to a growing number of massive grid-scale battery facilities, they can take years to plan, permit, and built.
But residential batteries can be permitted and installed in a matter of weeks. Base Power installed 10 megawatt-hours in March, co-founder and CEO Zach Dell told Canary Media. The company plans to hit the 100 megawatt-hour mark sometime this summer.
The new funding will go toward speeding installations and expanding into new states. It’ll also go toward starting construction on a battery factory in the U.S., an endeavor that could partially insulate it from the threat of tariffs but also introduce a new flavor of risk. Battery factories have proven challenging to master, and other companies have hit rough patches when attempting the same.