Base Power Company
Base Power is located in Austin, TX.
Can residential batteries help unlock an energy abundant future?
While energy production costs are quickly decreasing, led by the rapid decline in the cost of renewable energy sources like solar and wind, the cost of electricity in the US hasn’t changed in the last 20 years.
Why? Because even though generating electricity has gotten a lot cheaper, the cost of transmitting that energy from the place where it was generated to where it’s needed has gotten more expensive.
The US’s outdated and fragmented electrical grid is one part of this, and another is the inconsistency of renewable energy output that can vary from day to day. These problems are only going to be amplified as growing EV and data center energy demands further strain the grid.
One company, however, is taking a novel approach to solving the energy transmission problem. Base Power Company, also known as Base, aims to relieve pressure on the grid by installing residential batteries at scale.
One of the biggest issues facing the grid right now is low storage capacity: it’s difficult for volatile supply to meet volatile demand in real-time with minimal excess electricity ready to be deployed. This requires the grid to be designed for peak load, or it’ll go down.
Residential batteries, especially as they have become cheaper, are one way to decentralize electricity storage capacity and smoothing out demand and supply instability on the grid by charging when demand is low and discharging when demand is high.
Base Power’s core product is a battery for residential energy storage. The company installs large batteries in customers’ homes. It started with a 20 kWh battery and an 11-kW inverter, and began rolling out a 25 kWh battery in November 2024, two of which can be installed for 50 kWh total capacity, which is nearly four times the size of the typical home battery.
Base’s batteries are designed to last 15 years. Base handles maintenance, and on average the batteries have the capacity to power customers’ homes for a day. With average outages lasting 15-45 minutes, Base noted that its batteries protect customers from 97% of outages. As of October 2024, Base was installing up to nine batteries per day, with a goal of reaching 30 batteries per day.
Beyond just selling batteries, Base also becomes its customers’ retail electricity provider, helping customers reduce electricity loads by charging batteries during times of low demand and discharging them when demand is high. Base is currently building sensors and software to aggregate demand signals across its network of batteries as well, with the ultimate goal of acting as a virtual power plant that can generate revenues through power arbitrage.
To learn more about how Base is addressing our energy supply crunch, as well as opportunities and risks facing the company, read the full company breakdown on Contrary Research: https://lnkd.in/gGrzHaPJ