Energy storage startup Base Power began selling large-scale home battery systems to Illinois residents yesterday, Canary Media reports. Crucially, this will be the startup’s first foray into the grid region operated by PJM Interconnection, the largest U.S. grid operator by region and particularly struggling to cope with the 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. Because of this density and lack of new generation sources, wholesale electricity prices in PJM have nearly doubled over the past year. The power crunch has become so severe that AEP, one of the region’s largest utilities, has threatened to leave the market.
Base Power launched in Texas two years ago to build a virtual power plant centered on residential batteries. Starting at 25 kWh, Base’s batteries are larger than those of most competitors and require customers to buy electricity from the batteries rather than sell them. In Illinois, rates are 25% lower than utility ComEd.
The timing of the startup was also perfect. Base currently operates more than 500 megawatt hours of battery storage in Texas, charging when electricity is cheap and supplying batteries to the grid when they are needed most.
The entry into the PJM grid comes at a time when the operator has come under scrutiny for failing to properly handle growing power demand. PJM paused applications for new generation sources starting in 2022 and only reopened the queue in April. Unlike Base, the timing couldn’t be worse. Electricity demand has surged over the past four years.
Base’s launch has accelerated since October, when it announced a $1 billion round led by Addition. The round follows closely 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 such as distributed energy storage, but Base’s residential focus helps drive final execution around hard grid operators.
“We’re deploying capacity behind the meters in homes where interconnection already exists, so you’re not waiting in the interconnection queue,” Zach Dell, founder and CEO of Base Power, told Canary Media.
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