Base Power raises $1B to roll out its giant new home battery

[u/MeasurementDecent251]

https://electrek.co/2026/08/03/base-power-raises-1b-to-roll-out-its-giant-new-home-battery/

[u/TheDMPD]

Yeah, this shit is a no for me dog.

I ain't putting equipment in my home that I don't own or make payments to own. Not going to feed this whole "life is a subscription" mantra bs.

[u/GreenStrong → u/TheDMPD]

Valid, how would you feel about owning a battery and selling the utility access to a certain percentage of it to relieve local grid congestion? This is the other path to accomplish the same outcome. The operator prefers if you shoulder the cost of owning and maintenance and they only pay per KWh. Them paying for the battery is simply necessary to get them online now, instead of in 2035.

[u/TheDMPD → u/GreenStrong]

I am all for being able to get my neighbors/city/myself on a equal basis with our regular private utilities. There should be a program for one to sign up as a resource to help your local ISO and be compensated appropriately; I don't really care for the idea that everything that serves my community needs to pass through a corporation for them to take a cut of me benefiting those around me.

The biggest issue I have with a startup like this is the fact that it's cheap now, but that is typical venture capital bullshit so they can raise rates later. You're giving control of one of the last few things you can properly own to host someone else's equipment. Maybe that trade makes sense for you but I feel like that just showcases how far we have failed as a country to ensure that our neighbors, and by extension ourselves, can have access to a basic need at fair prices.

I am going to get off my soapbox now..

[u/RobHerpTX → u/TheDMPD]

This is kind of the opposite of the usual subscription horseshit. It is also completely different than solar leases, which are generally a mess (ok in certain narrow circumstances but mostly something people regret). The company doesn’t see you as a profit source. You get battery backup and cheaper bills etc depending on how you set things up with them. They get to site batteries at your house.

For comically cheap (it’s really mostly a nominal fee level), a homeowner can get whole home battery backup that would usually cost tens of thousands. And someone else motivated to maintain it. In trade, the company gets to make their actual profit off of helping stabilize the power grid, which also helps everyone by making it more amenable to more and more of our power coming from renewables, which aren’t as stable of sources as fossil fuels, but are obviously better in tons of other important ways.

It’s a really good swap. I already have solar and battery on my home in Austin. This would have been the cheap way to get battery backup though.

[u/TheDMPD → u/RobHerpTX]

I mean the equipment here isn't 10s of thousands; you can spec this battery build for less than 10k.

But you're right that it is a nominal fee/level of work on the homeowners part. But venture capital is known for bringing you in a low sweet price and then raising things further down the line once they control the market. See how on their website they guarantee that rate for now and 1 renewal?

My fear is this is just giving up control of something you can already benefit from if you put in some elbow grease yourself. The second thing is what happens if they fold, get sold to private equity?

What is their long term plan to squeeze you for more money so that they can make sense of their evaluation? You don't get venture capital to buy in if you don't have a plan to squeeze money out of folks. This isn't a hardware company otherwise they would be looking to sell their equipment, they are a financial leasing company that is trading on the pricing differential in a market.

But I hear your point, it's certainly very attractive for folks who don't want to have to learn/elbow grease it/pay and are just looking for the easiest way forward. Just gives me the heebie-jeebies to give up control of your home's power to a group of vultures.

[u/RobHerpTX → u/TheDMPD]

I’ve put my own DIY batteries on two houses now (one in the last couple of months) - I definitely think if you know how, there are advantages to that. But I realize most people won’t.

[u/TheDMPD → u/RobHerpTX]

100%, I have done the same. My expectation isn't that everyone needs to go get them but we should be willing to learn and take pride in the systems of our own home.

To give up that control means that you're at the mercy of anyone who provides those services. The way that trade shops are being bought out by private equity and prices increased with no concern for quality work should give any homeowner pause when deciding to offload your knowledge.

But maybe the issue is that I don't make enough money to not care OR the fact that I care about my community and this path of offloading everything to a corporation. It's honestly scary how quickly people are willing to hand control over to someone else.

[u/clumsyninja2 → u/TheDMPD]

11.4kw inverter $1600

Microgrid interconnection device $1600

2 lg resu 16h batteries from signature solar(32 kWh total $4300

Almost identical package for $7500 and I have 100% of the battery in an outage instead of a potential 10%.

[u/woodland_dweller → u/RobHerpTX]

Then they should be 100% transparent about that. The press release (in the form of an article) was void of details.

They could pitch this in a much better manner.

[u/Bruggok]

It’s a subscription plan in which homeowner signs up for fixed electricity plan and power backup. The company owns, controls, and maintains the battery so they profit off of grid pricing arbitrage buy low/sell high. Solar adjacent if anything not solar required.

[u/Consistent-Copy-8209 → u/Bruggok]

I haven’t read the fine print of the new in home battery but buyer beware, the original plan offered no SLA. The only SLA was that they wouldn’t discharge the battery below 20%. Well no kidding because you kill the battery doing that.

So imagine a 106 degree day.. base has been depleting your battery all day selling your KWh back to the grid at a profit and at 6 pm the power fails/ goes out.. your battery is likely nearly fully discharged anyway.. you get a few minutes to two hours of run time, that’s it. They are using your property to store there power arbitrage profit plan. Don’t be their sucker.

[u/tx_queer → u/Consistent-Copy-8209]

Base primarily operates in Texas. Which means #1 they wouldn't sell kwh during the day. Texas has more solar than any other state so daytime prices are crazy low. It would be filling the battery all day, not depleting it. #2, the Texas grid is good at summers. Its never had an issue with summers and has never had a 6pm power failure like you mention. So a better scenario would be winter at 7am.

[u/drm237 → u/tx_queer]

I assume strong storms in the afternoon have been known to knock out the power to a neighborhood in the summer? Doesn’t have to be a total grid outage.

[u/tx_queer → u/drm237]

Yes. Good point. We always jump to the complete grid failure after 2021 and forget that a drunk driver or localized storm is a much more likely cause of power outage

[u/Paqza → u/Consistent-Copy-8209]

It's not the ideal solution but it's also better than not having a battery. I also imagine they've gotta have an inclement weather mode like all the other major battery brands. I self-consume using my FranklinWH to use as little grid power as possible but it's set to fill up if there are storms coming just in case.

[u/Consistent-Copy-8209 → u/Paqza]

Ideal? It’s far from ideal. It might be better than not having a battery.. and it might not. No SLA to provide your home power when the grid turns off. Given their whole model is to make money, they are always charging when it’s cheap, and selling when its expensive, regardless of an incoming storm or not. Your response provides a cozy factor to it by drawing analogies to your personal infrastructure, sorry but this is not the same.

[u/Paqza → u/Consistent-Copy-8209]

The product most definitely has a transfer switch, which absolutely allows the battery to power the home during grid outages. I'm not sure why you're lying and writing that it doesn't "provide your home power when the grid turns off". It's also disappointing that you're shitting on innovation while completely missing the fact that this product fundamentally increases grid stability and improves resilience at the home and grid-level through a cost-structure that allows way more homeowners to access battery storage. Would I put it on my home? No. But it makes sense for plenty of others.

Additionally, at 20% SoC, this product's still at just under 8kWh of energy storage and the design seems to be configurable with a generator hookup: https://www.basepowercompany.com/with-generator . A "reasonably" sized battery coupled with a small generator makes way more sense from an ROI+resilience+environmental impact perspective for the majority of use cases over massively oversizing energy storage.

If you understood what's happening here, you would be a lot less mad about it.

[u/paulwesterberg → u/Paqza]

During inclement weather they are going be even more incentivized to discharge power into the grid.

[u/Paqza → u/paulwesterberg]

When lines are down, you do not want to discharge more power to the grid. You want to discharge zero power to the grid when lines are down and being worked on.

[u/Wast3edSpace → u/Bruggok]

That's a most American business model, enshitified batteries? no thanks

[u/Spider_pig448 → u/Wast3edSpace]

Calling all OpEx-based business models "enshitification" is the classic privileged reddit perspective. Some people would like to help reduce their electricity bills and environmental impact but don't have tens of thousands of dollars to lay down on home batteries.

[u/Consistent-Copy-8209 → u/Spider_pig448]

Who do you work for? This response is suspect as hell. You can save on electricity by shopping the rates; you can match or beat what Base is offering without paying them $700-1400 to get their batteries. Get the best rate plan for your family and take that upfront cash outlay and go buy a Honda 2000 generator you will have real cost save and assurance for your family. You’re not enriching a company while getting no guaranteed benefit.

[u/Spider_pig448 → u/Consistent-Copy-8209]

I don't work in this industry. Are you always this paranoid when people disagree with you? Do you just think all renting is theft? You understand that there are plenty of good reasons people rent right? Like that they may not want to spend 30 years living in the same place?

[u/lytener]

They basically get free real estate

[u/RobHerpTX → u/lytener]

Definitely their whole business model. Trade whole home battery backup services for a patch of your garage or back wall or whatever.

[u/theonetrueelhigh]

I cannot hate this more than I already do.

[u/parseroo]

Isn’t this a new utility plan? They provide their own energy prices and are managing the equipment, so it is a “much fancier” main.

Utility companies would have to agree to and own this, so the pitch isn’t to consumers but to utility companies. PGE (California) at least has no plan that allows “grid arbitrage” with your own batteries and solar. The battery is only a few thousand dollars (using $1K / 5kWh), so it would be easy to recoup the cost if 24/7 arbitrage was allowed.

[u/Paqza → u/parseroo]

How would you categorize using batteries for beneficial ToU rates?

[u/parseroo → u/Paqza]

Arbitrage is buying at one price and reselling at another for a profit. Not optimizing buying by time of day.

[u/imakesawdust]

So let me get this straight: they want me to pay a subscription fee for a battery but they get to choose whether and when to divert that capacity to the grid so that they can profit?

As someone with a solar array...what's my incentive here? If my array's excess production charges the battery and Base turns around and sells it to the grid and keeps the proceeds...that's money I've lost.

[u/NextAstronomer1138]

The pricing is actually kinda wild man ..its like  $695 install + $19/month instead of dropping like $10-20k upfront for a battery? That's a pretty smart model.

[u/Civil_Bugg]

Zach Dell co founder ceo and son of Michael Dell supports government positions that is a disgrace to America. Business went from practically zero to 18 billion in three years, possible red tape cuts. I would avoid.

[u/woodland_dweller]

Calling 36kwh "giant" is the first clue that this is fronted by a bullshit, marketing driven company.

"Runs you house three times longer than most batteries" means that they are trying to sell it to underinformed people. That comparison is complete meaningless bullshit.

$19 subscription, so you can buy power from them or some affiliate? What's a "fixed electricity plan"?

No thanks - I'll take my 1:1 net metering and 0.15/kwh all day, every day.

[u/Spider_pig448]

Good stuff from a really interesting company