The POWER Interview: Using Home Batteries to Support the Grid

The Dell name is synonymous with technology and innovation, so perhaps it’s not surprising that a member of that famous computing family is working to solve the challenge of making electricity more reliable and resilient.

The technology is distributed batteries, in this case a battery for the home that supports the power grid during periods of peak demand for electricity. It offers protection from power outages, and also in essence can function as a virtual power plant (VPP), providing stability for the power grid and lowering electricity costs.

Zach Dell, son of Dell Technologies’ founder Michael Dell, has taken advantage of Texas’ deregulated power market with the creation of Base Power. Zach Dell and co-founder Justin Lopas say the company is the first and only retail electric provider in Texas to offer customers a home battery, monthly energy service, and installation of equipment all in one package.

The need for more reliable electricity is a particular concern in Texas, where Hurricane Beryl in July became the latest major storm to cause widespread and lengthy power outages, something all-too-familiar to the state’s residents in recent years. Texas officials already have created the Texas Energy Fund to support more dispatchable utility-scale power generation across ERCOT (the state’s grid manager), and entrepreneurs such as Dell and Lopas are working to provide the residential sector with solutions.

Base, founded in 2023 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, offers a 20-kWh battery and 11-kW inverter for home use. The company says its batteries are designed to last more than 15 years, with the ability to withstand extreme temperatures. The company also says its technology is more cost-effective than a home generator for backup power.

Base is led by a team of engineers and operators from companies including SpaceX, Tesla, Anduril, Blackstone, and Apple. The company has raised capital from Thrive Capital, Valor Equity Partners, Altimeter Capital, Trust Ventures, Terrain, and others.

Dell and Lopas recently provided POWER with information about their company and its technology and services, talking about their entry into the Texas power market and how their system provides more access to distributed energy resources for electricity customers.

POWER: How does your company’s technology support the Texas power grid? What problems are you looking to solve?

Dell: Base’s mission is to provide reliable and affordable power for all. Texas leads the nation in power outages—homeowners in the state experience more hours of outages than anywhere else in the country. Additionally, electricity prices across the state have almost doubled since 2017. We’re putting power into the hands of the people by offering a battery for only the cost of installation. Batteries decrease outages, smooth volatile energy prices, and leverage renewable energy sources.

Base’s battery supports the grid during times of peak need by discharging stored energy, and protects customers from power outages when the grid goes down. With Base’s distributed battery fleet (as opposed to large utility scale battery installations), stress on the grid can be relieved at the load instead of at the generation source.

POWER: What is the business model?

Dell: Base is the first and only energy provider to offer customers a home battery, monthly energy service, and installation all-in-one, with no requirement of solar installation. The business model works in the following way: when the grid is up and running, Base discharges the batteries during times of peak need, which is how Base generates most of its revenue. When the grid goes down, the battery provides power to the home. The customer only pays for the cost of installation upfront and saves money over time via lower energy rates enabled by the battery.

POWER: What is the battery chemistry of the product, and how are you addressing safety?

Lopas: Base uses lithium iron phosphate (LFP) technology, which has significantly fewer concerns along these lines than batteries used in EVs (electric vehicles), which are primarily nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC). NMC batteries (by their name) use a number of precious metals which are difficult to source and are ecologically damaging in their extraction processes. Importantly, the cobalt in NMC cells primarily comes from a single country in Africa. LFP cells use worldwide-abundant materials: lithium is cleanly extracted from mines all around the world, as are phosphate (a key ingredient in fertilizers) and iron (used in steel and is abundant/easy to extract).

Base’s hardware is UL certified—the “gold standard” of electrical systems safety. This means it has gone through a rigorous set of tests prior to being built, and each one is tested prior to being installed on a home. The electricians that install the battery are also licensed, bonded, insured and certified.

POWER: What can a homeowner or business owner expect when they purchase the product and service?

Dell: Homeowners get access to “energy on autopilot” with Base–they never have to worry about their power going out or their bill going up. Customers can sign up online in minutes, pay the installation fee, and the installation process is fully covered by Base. Once installed, Base batteries provide automatic backup without the customer intervening. Our engineers continuously monitor and maintain the batteries for optimal performance. Customers enjoy savings with simple, transparent energy bills. The Base web app also allows users to monitor their battery, track usage, view bills, and earn free energy through referrals.

In 2025, we will enter the commercial market, offering similar energy services and backup power offering for businesses, such as restaurants.

POWER: How are you designing a network that could function as a virtual power plant? Can consumers sell power back to the grid?

Lopas: An important point to consider is the difference between centralized utility-scale batteries and distributed Base Power batteries. Our batteries act as a network in that different locations in the network perform different tasks. The network can optimize for different locations on the grid based on price signals at specific locations, which are representative of local supply and demand. Utility-scale batteries by definition can only affect the location where they are installed—a vastly smaller impact than distributed batteries.

POWER: How does the network work with regard to the power grid, and the Texas’ deregulated energy marketplace?

Dell: Base Power is what is called a Retail Electricity Provider (REP), an entity in the Texas deregulated energy market. REPs like Base buy power on the wholesale market run by ERCOT, and sell it to retail homeowner customers. From the homeowner’s perspective, this means that they have choice in who their power provider is. Base is one of those options, but importantly, also comes with a battery. Most other energy providers, like Reliant and Gexa, really only offer different ways to pay for electricity. It’s a challenging environment for Texans to navigate, so we provide clear and transparent pricing. And we’re the only energy provider to actually add value and peace-of-mind to the customer’s lives by including a battery that backs them up in the event of an outage.

POWER: Why do you think batteries have fundamental value for the power grid?

Dell: Batteries provide a way to store energy that can be deployed instantly when needed. This capability is crucial for balancing supply and demand, reducing reliance on fossil fuel peaker plants, and increasing renewable energy sources. Batteries also enhance reliability and resilience by providing backup power during outages. The distributed nature of our system has unique value on the distribution side of the grid where loads can be balanced.

POWER: Let’s talk about the telemetry of the batteries and the network, and how that affects battery deployment and pricing—both for consumers and the grid/marketplace.

Lopas: Telemetry allows us to monitor and manage the performance of our batteries and the network in real-time. This data helps optimize battery deployment, ensuring they are charged and discharged at the most advantageous times. For customers, this means more efficient energy use, cost savings, and improved reliability. For the grid, it means better load management and reduced strain during peak times at the right locations, ultimately affecting energy pricing and stability in the marketplace.

POWER: How can Base support a balance of supply and demand on the Texas grid, and where do batteries come into play? What do you see on the horizon for demand issues as more industries are electrified, and as more EVs are on the road?

Dell: Base can balance supply and demand by charging batteries with excess energy when demand is low and discharging them when demand is high. As more industries electrify and EV adoption increases, the demand on the grid will rise significantly. Our batteries will play a critical role in smoothing out these demand spikes, preventing overloads, and ensuring a stable energy supply.

POWER: How could Base help solve issues with power demand from data centers?

Dell: Data centers are contributing to a rise in power demand, which is adding stress to the grid. Batteries add capacity to the existing grid, enabling this increase in demand while utilizing the same poles and wires infrastructure.

POWER: How does Base differ, from both a hardware and software perspective, from other batteries serving homes today?

Lopas: Base’s current battery is 20 kWh and 11.4 kW, which is almost 2x the energy and 2x the power of typical home batteries. Base’s second-generation product, currently under development, will have 30 kWh and 24kW, enabling it to backup the entire home for an extended duration, as well as support the grid with a large amount of power during scarcity events.

POWER: Why was Texas the right place to start this business?

Dell: There’s a few reasons why Texas is the most interesting place to start the company. The first is that Texas has the most renewable energy generation of any state: it’s at the intersection of the Sun Belt and the wind corridor. It’s also where customers feel the most pain in outages, due to severe weather events. Texas is deregulated so we can solve the customer’s problems end-to-end and quickly enter the market. Texas is also uniquely its own grid—meaning it can’t borrow from neighboring regions, resulting in highly volatile pricing, which batteries can uniquely capitalize on.

—Darrell Proctor is senior editor for POWER (@POWERmagazine).