Zachary Dell, son of Michael Dell, has established Base Power, a company building a distributed power generation network by installing thousands of battery systems in American homes to address the surging electricity demand fueled by artificial intelligence. The company recently finalized a $1 billion funding round, which values it at $13 billion.
Operating as a retail electricity provider in deregulated markets like Texas, and as a supplier to utility companies in regulated ones, Base Power adds batteries to help stabilize the grid. For a maximum price of $650, the company installs a 39.2 kilowatt-hour battery system in a home and charges a monthly fee similar to traditional retail power suppliers.
Base Power retains control of the batteries, profiting through an arbitrage model where it charges them during periods of low electricity prices and sells the power back to the grid when prices are high. To date, the company has deployed approximately 25,000 battery systems and established partnerships with utilities in Texas and Illinois.
Its battery factory in Austin boasts an annual production capacity of 3 gigawatt-hours, manufacturing 300 battery systems per shift, with plans to open a new facility on the outskirts of Austin later this year. This expansion places the company alongside Tesla Inc and Amazon.com Inc in growing their manufacturing operations in the Austin area.
Zachary Dell stated that his ambition is to become "one of the largest and fastest-growing power developers in the world." He noted that in a decade, the world's largest company will likely be a power company, and Base Power is positioning itself for that role. He co-founded the company in 2023 with Justin Lopas, a mechanical engineer who previously held executive manufacturing positions at SpaceX and Anduril Industries. Lopas mentioned that the company is currently focused on expansion rather than setting profitability targets.
The Dells are benefiting from the explosive growth in data center construction. Dell Technologies projects AI server sales of $60 billion for the fiscal year ending January 2027. Base Power is growing rapidly as customers and utility companies seek to offset power costs and grid congestion.
In June, the company announced a partnership with utility ComEd to launch operations in Chicago. A previously approved distributed energy pilot program in Texas allows battery packs to participate in wholesale market bidding as a single resource, providing policy support for Base Power's business model.
The latest funding round attracted venture capital groups including Ribbit and Valor Equity Partners, with additional investments from Joshua Kushner's Thrive Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Lopas, the co-founder and COO, stated that while the company started with home batteries in Texas, its ambitions extend far beyond that, aiming to become a "modern energy platform."