Energy abundance is fundamental to prosperity; as the saying goes, high-income low-energy countries don’t exist.
Source: Our World in Data
But as energy production and consumption both accelerate in the US as the economy continues to electrify, our infrastructure is cracking under the pressure.
That’s where Base Power comes in. Base Power aims to become the modern power company of the electric era, and today, we’re excited to announce our investment in its $1 billion Series C led by Addition, with participation from new and existing investors like a16z, Lightspeed, Thrive, and Contrary.
As we wrote about extensively in our Contrary Research deep dive on the birth of the decentralized energy grid, the US relies on infrastructure from the 1960s for the production and transmission of energy: big centralized plants, analog controls, and thin margins of spare capacity. The aging foundation is now feeling the pressure of increasing decentralization across both production (solar, wind) and usage (EVs, data centers).
As painful as decentralization has been on the outdated grid, it also creates an opportunity for localization. That’s the opportunity that Zach Dell and Justin Lopas saw when they set out to build Base Power. If power is moving back and forth across more sources and destinations, then why not give consumers more control as participants in the decentralized grid?
Starting in 2023, Zach and Justin built Base to empower residential energy consumers. Transmission is one of the biggest weaknesses of the grid. Rather than hoping energy can get to you, Base put the control in the hands of the consumer to utilize energy when it made the most sense for them. As Casey Handmer put it: “transmission moves power through space and batteries move power through time."
Relying on the status quo of hardware and capital is proving untenable. Building new high-voltage transmission lines costs over $20 billion annually, requiring more than a decade to build. Zach and Justin came from the capital and hardware world, respectively, and each saw a piece of the puzzle. The first solution to transmission issues? Batteries.
Rather than rely on expensive, outdated infrastructure to catch up, Base could bundle a product that would deliver higher-quality energy capabilities right to a user’s home. By providing the Base Battery plus the installation and then acting as a software-enabled retail electricity provider, Base reduces the consumer’s dependence on the grid and offers them physical and financial control over their energy appetite.
As we’ve gotten to work with the Base team over the last year, we’ve seen that thesis play out. The company’s first step is to become a vertically integrated energy company across the demand side: manufacturing the batteries, installing them, and providing the energy retail service. Going forward, Base’s vision is to go even further into revolutionizing the broader energy stack.
To learn more about Base and their aim to become the “modern power company of the electric era”, read our memo on Contrary Research here, and read the team’s announcement here.
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