Base Power is an Austin-based residential energy company that installs lithium iron phosphate home batteries and serves as the customer's retail electricity provider. It was founded in 2023 by CEO Zach Dell and co-founder Justin Lopas and launched commercially in May 2024. Dell, previously at Blackstone and Thrive Capital, is the son of Michael Dell. Lopas came from SpaceX and Anduril, where he ran manufacturing operations. The broader team has backgrounds at SpaceX, Tesla, Anduril, Blackstone, and Apple.
The company operates in Texas's deregulated electricity market (ERCOT), where it holds a Retail Electric Provider license. That license lets Base buy power on the wholesale market and resell to residential customers — and it is central to the business model: it gives the company control over both the hardware (the battery) and the electricity flowing through it, which is what makes the grid services revenue possible. By early 2026, Base had deployed 250 MWh of home batteries across Texas and had expanded into Illinois via ComEd.
Customers pay a one-time installation fee ($695 to $995), a monthly subscription ($19 or $29 depending on battery size), and a fixed electricity rate of 8.5¢/kWh plus utility delivery charges. The three-year electricity purchase commitment is the key contract term: it gives Base a predictable revenue stream and a long enough window to recover the hardware subsidy embedded in the below-market installation cost. The company covers up to $250 in early termination fees from a prior provider.
As a licensed REP, Base buys electricity on ERCOT's real-time wholesale market. Its software charges home batteries when prices are low and dispatches them back to the home (and the grid) when prices spike. The spread between the charging cost and the discharge value is Base's primary per-battery revenue source. ERCOT's nodal pricing structure means each battery's grid location has its own price signals, and Base dispatches each unit accordingly. The company shares part of the arbitrage margin with customers through below-market electricity rates rather than direct cash payments.
In February 2026, Base launched its first regulated utility program with El Paso Electric, deploying 10 MW of distributed battery capacity. The structure is different from the Texas REP model: batteries connect on the utility side of the meter, EPE manages dispatch centrally and pays homeowners a one-time $250 fee, and Base is paid by the utility as a capacity provider rather than by the customer as an electricity retailer. This creates a path into the roughly 90% of U.S. electricity markets that are regulated and where Base cannot hold an REP license.
Base's batteries use lithium iron phosphate (LFP) chemistry, chosen for its thermal stability, long cycle life (15+ years rated), and a supply chain independent of nickel and cobalt. The Gen 2 product is a 25 kWh ground-mounted module with an 11 kW inverter, stackable to 50 kWh with a second unit. It mounts adjacent to the home's AC system and requires no solar installation.
Gen 3, now in production at the Austin factory, is fully designed and manufactured in-house: 40 kWh base, stackable to 80 kWh. The move to in-house hardware is intended to cut unit cost and let the engineering team iterate on hardware and software together. Dell has described the manufacturing ramp as difficult, with the critical period running through mid-2026.
ERCOT's structure is unusually favorable for Base's model. Texas runs an energy-only market with real-time nodal pricing, no capacity market, and relatively few barriers for new retail providers. Price spikes are also more frequent and more extreme than in most U.S. markets: Winter Storm Uri in February 2021 sent wholesale prices to $9,000/MWh for days. A distributed fleet of batteries that charges during off-peak hours and discharges during price events can capture that spread repeatedly.
Base qualified for ERCOT's Aggregated Distributed Energy Resources (ADER) pilot program in 2025, allowing its battery fleet to participate directly in grid ancillary services markets alongside energy arbitrage. ADER participation lets the fleet provide frequency regulation and operating reserves, which carry separate compensation from the energy market. With 250 MWh deployed by early 2026, Base expects to become one of the larger contributors to the ADER program.
Factory One is at the former Austin American-Statesman printing site in downtown Austin, two blocks from Base's engineering office. The proximity is deliberate: Dell has described the short distance between design and production as central to compressing the hardware iteration cycle. The facility targets 500 jobs and is the production site for Gen 3 batteries. A second U.S. factory is already in planning.
The move to in-house manufacturing is a significant bet for a two-year-old company. Most residential battery installers source cells and BMS components from established suppliers (LG, BYD, CATL) and focus on software and installation. Base is going further upstream, betting that controlling the hardware gives it better unit economics and a faster product development cycle. Whether the Gen 3 ramp executes on schedule will be a key indicator through 2026.
Base raised a $68 million Series A in May 2024, eleven months after incorporation. The $200 million Series B followed in April 2025, led by Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Valor Equity Partners, with participation from Thrive Capital, Altimeter, Terrain, and Trust. Six months later, in October 2025, the company closed a $1 billion Series C led by Addition at a pre-money valuation of approximately $3 billion. Other Series C participants included CapitalG, Elad Gil, Lightspeed, Ribbit, Thrive Capital, Valor, Lowercarbon, and Andreessen Horowitz.
The pace of fundraising reflects both investor appetite for distributed energy storage and Base's rapid deployment growth: from zero to 250 MWh in roughly 18 months. Partnerships with Lennar (new home construction), Bandera Electric Cooperative (Hill Country Texas), and CenterPoint Energy (Houston) provide customer acquisition channels beyond direct-to-consumer marketing.
The core strategy is to build a large enough distributed battery fleet that grid services revenue subsidizes below-market electricity rates for customers, making Base sticky on both the energy and reliability dimensions. Each new installation adds to the fleet's aggregate capacity and its ability to capture ERCOT price spreads. The El Paso Electric partnership tests a second model for markets where the Texas REP structure does not apply.
The $1 billion Series C funds national expansion beyond Texas and Illinois, Gen 3 manufacturing scale-up, and continued software development. The next geographic targets are likely other deregulated or partially deregulated markets (MISO, PJM, parts of New England) where nodal pricing creates similar arbitrage opportunities to ERCOT, though no other U.S. market has ERCOT's price volatility or its isolation from the broader grid.
The profitability of the ERCOT model depends on wholesale price volatility. ERCOT has added capacity and transmission since Uri, which may compress future price spikes. If spreads narrow over time, Base would need to lean more heavily on monthly subscription fees and ADER ancillary services revenue to cover hardware costs and customer acquisition. The durability of the arbitrage margin is the central financial question for the business.
In-house battery manufacturing at scale is a difficult problem. The hardware industry has many examples of companies that raised large rounds and then struggled on the factory floor. Base is building its first production facility while simultaneously growing its install base. Any hardware quality issues or production delays would create a tension between deployment commitments and product availability.
The regulated utility expansion path (El Paso Electric) is a structurally different business from the Texas REP model. In regulated markets, Base is a vendor to a utility rather than the customer's direct electricity provider. That changes the economics, the sales cycle, and the customer relationship. Whether Base can build a scalable regulated utility business alongside its retail business is an open question, and the two models may require different organizational capabilities.
This profile was compiled from publicly available information including:
Base Power corporate website — Product details, pricing, and service territory.
TechCrunch (Oct 2025) — Series C announcement, business model, and manufacturing plans.
Energy Capital (Apr 2025) — Series B announcement and investor details.
PV Magazine USA (Feb 2026) — El Paso Electric partnership and regulated utility model.
POWER Magazine — Leadership interview on grid services and ERCOT integration.
This profile is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, a recommendation, or a solicitation to buy or sell any security.