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Justin Lopas, left, and Zach Dell believe their Base Power company can change the way Texas homeowners interact with their electricity provider and add stability for the state’s power grid. (Courtesy photo | Base Power)
” data-medium-file=”https://fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Zach-Justin-scaled.jpg?fit=225%2C300&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Zach-Justin-scaled.jpg?fit=768,1024&ssl=1″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button”>Few — particularly those who lost power — have forgotten the Big Freeze of February 2021, when as many as 4.5 million homes and businesses lost power around the state. Since then, state government and power generation officials have worked to shore up and stabilize Texas’ power grid. Despite those efforts, many homeowners and businesses have sought their own solutions, running from solar panels to generators. Two Texas entrepreneurs think they have an answer and just began offering their battery-powered home energy service in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It’s more than just a new product, said Base Power co-founder Zach Dell. Base Power wants to change the way Texas homeowners interact with their electricity provider and add stability for the state’s power grid at the same time, he said. Base Power officials say they help customers save on their monthly electric bills and supply uninterrupted power for a fraction of the upfront cost of comparable batteries and generators. Headquartered in Austin, Base Power is led by co-founders Dell, the son of Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, and Justin Lopas, who was formerly an engineer at SpaceX. They certainly have found acceptance in the investment world, being funded to the tune of $68 million from Thrive Capital, Valor Equity Partners, Altimeter Capital, Trust Ventures, Terrain and MCJ, an investment group focused on climate change. A typical Base Power installation on the side of a home. (Courtesy photo | Base Power) The 20-plus employees include a team of engineers and operators hailing from companies including SpaceX, Tesla, Anduril, Blackstone (where Dell previously worked) and Apple. The company is using off-the-shelf battery technology for now, but it created its own customer software system to run the batteries, manage the cloud and provide a seamless customer experience, Dell said. The software monitors the grid and provides more power to those customers that are seeing higher stress on the grid at different times of the day. “We’re at the right place with the technology and it’s worked well,” said Dell. “We’ve got more to do and we’re working on more technologies to add to our offerings. It’s an exciting place to be right now.” According to the company, Base Power has backed up its customers in the Austin area in every outage since its initial launch in May. A basic home power system with battery backup will typically last between 8 and 12 hours during a power outage, depending on usage. “We believe that the existing power grid is outdated and Texas is growing, so there is a lot of unreliable power and big variances in electricity prices for homeowners,” Dell said. Dell is focused on building a company that uses the best technology, but also provides the best customer experience, he said. “That’s not been the experience of many customers in this market,” he said. “It has not been customer friendly.” Many companies offer home battery backup plans tied to a solar installation, but few, if any, have been offering the types of products and services like Base Power, said Chris Boyer, associate professor for electrical engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington. “It’s a great opportunity for people who want an alternative to a backup generator,” he said. “Most of the outages in Texas are less than a couple of hours, so it makes a lot of sense.”Base Power’s system has homeowners paying a $3,000 one-time installation fee. From there, the homeowner is also responsible for the monthly energy bill paid through Base Power, which they guarantee will be lower than consumption rates on the market.“We’re charging you when the price of power is really low and we’re discharging that battery when the price of power is really high,” Dell said. “That helps us offer you a more reliable and lower rate on your electricity.” The company also has an app that allows customers to measure the amount of energy they use and informs them of any power system events. “Base Power’s system has them selling energy back to the power companies,” said Boyer. “Eventually, when they have enough users, it will make a real difference on our very stressed grid.” Wendi Baird is a Base Power user and beta tester in Round Rock. She said her home lost electricity for nearly four days during the February 2021 ice storm.“We were sleeping in gloves and layers of clothing and coats and hats under multiple blankets,” she said. “We said, ‘Never again.’”Baird said the neighborhood, on the edge of Round Rock, has always had a difficult time staying connected. So, after the storm, Baird and several of her neighbors formed a committee to look for solutions. Eventually, Base Power spoke to the group and she and several others decided to try it. “So far, there have been three outages since they installed it early this summer and, really, we didn’t notice,” she said. What she has noticed is the energy bill for her 4,600-square-foot house has been lower. She’s paid just over $200 per month compared to the usual price of $600 during the summer. “I didn’t expect that,” she said. “That’s been a pleasant surprise.” Base Power is currently providing its services in Fort Worth, Arlington, Grand Prairie and deregulated regions near Austin. The city of Dallas has some additional requirements, but Dell said they expect to be available there in early 2025. Bob Francis is business editor for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at bob.francis@fortworthreport.org. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.