Energy storage startup Base Power began selling its massive home battery systems to Illinois residents yesterday, Canary Media reported. Crucially, it will be the startup’s first foray into grid territory operated by PJM Interconnection, the largest US grid operator by territory and one that has notably struggled to cope with an onslaught of new data centers.
In addition to Illinois, PJM’s territory includes Northern Virginia, one of the densest data center regions on the planet. This density, combined with a lack of new generation sources, has caused wholesale electricity prices in PJM to nearly double over the past year. The power crisis has become so bad that AEP, one of the region’s largest utilities, has threatened to leave the market.
Base Power launched two years ago in Texas to build a virtual power plant centered around residential batteries. Starting at 25 kilowatt-hours, Base’s batteries are larger than many of its competitors, and instead of selling the batteries, it requires customers to buy electricity from it. In Illinois, rates are 25% below ComEd’s.
The timing of the start-up has also been impeccable. Base currently operates more than 500 megawatt-hours of battery storage in Texas, charging when electricity prices are cheap and sending them when the grid needs it most.
Its entry into the PJM grid comes at a time when the operator has come under scrutiny for bungling its handling of rising electricity demand. PJM had put applications for new generation sources on hold starting in 2022, and only reopened the queue in April. Unlike Base, the timing couldn’t have been worse – demand for electricity has skyrocketed in the last four years.
Base’s rollout has been gaining momentum since October, when it announced a $1 billion round led by Addition. This round followed close on the heels of a $200 million round led by Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Valor Equity Partners in April 2025.
Historically, PJM has been slow to adopt new technologies like distributed energy storage, but Base’s residential focus is helping it make a final run around the sclerotic grid operator.
“We’re rolling out behind-the-meter capacity in the home where interconnection already exists, so we’re not waiting in the interconnection queue,” Zach Dell, Base Power’s founder and CEO, told Canary Media.
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