Zach Dell (Yes, That Dell) Charges Up a $13 Billion Backyard Battery Startup
Base has installed more than 23,000 batteries and just debuted a new battery that can store more than a day’s worth of energy.
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It’s a Texas-style solution to power-grid problems if ever there was one: Just put a big battery in the backyard.
Zach Dell’s battery startup Base Power raised $1 billion in a fresh funding round, bringing his three-year-old company’s total valuation to $13 billion. Michael Dell, Zach’s famous tech-entrepreneur father, isn’t backing Base, but Ribbit, Addition and JPMorgan Chase’s Strategic Investment Group are.
Base has installed more than 23,000 batteries throughout Texas and Illinois and yesterday debuted a new battery that can store more than a day’s worth of energy. The rentable batteries aren’t just backup power sources for when grids fail. They’re meant to be used by electricity companies to make power grids more efficient, affordable and less likely to fail in the first place.
When A/C Is a Luxury
Americans are expected to spend an average of about $800 powering their homes this summer, up nearly 11% from the same time last year, the National Energy Assistance Directors Association estimated. Prices have skyrocketed as AI data-center demand strains an already-struggling system:
- The power grid has a utilization problem, Zach Dell told Bloomberg. While grids are built to handle peak demand like the hottest days of the year, they don’t need that capacity most of the time. Base’s batteries can store extra energy during off-times that’s automatically tapped when everyone simultaneously cranks the A/C. Customers of El Paso Electric have volunteered to have Base batteries installed to put the plan to the test.
- Base’s pick of locations is strategic. Texas, which operates its own separate power grid, has been trying to shore up its systems since the winter of 2021, when key infrastructure froze, millions of Texans lost power and hundreds died. Illinois, meanwhile, hosts a large swath of power-draining data centers.
Bringing It Home: Base batteries could help power companies handle the costs of repairing infrastructure like power lines. Because of that, El Paso Electric is covering Base battery installation and offering an additional cash incentive. Americans are increasingly looking to batteries to keep their homes powered, with home-battery installations measured by gigawatt-hours hitting a record in the first quarter. Base aims to double the 100 installations it does per day by the end of this year.
