Energy storage startup Base Power began selling bulk home battery systems to Illinois residents yesterday, Canary Media reports informed. Crucially, this will be the first foray into grid territory by a startup owned and operated by PJM Interconnection, the largest US grid operator by area. was struggling to cope with the onslaught of new data centers.
Outside of Illinois, PJM’s territory includes Northern Virginia, one of the densest data center regions on the planet. This congestion, combined with a dearth of new generation sources, has led to lower wholesale electricity prices in PJM. it has almost doubled in the last year. The energy crisis has gotten so bad that AEP, one of the region’s largest utilities, has threatened to exit the market.
Base Strength launched two years ago in Texas to build a virtual power plant around residential batteries. Base’s batteries, which start at 25 kilowatt-hours, are larger than many of its competitors, and it requires customers to buy electricity from it rather than sell the batteries. In Illinois, its rates are 25% lower than ComEd utilities.
The timing of the launch was also impeccable. The base currently operates more than 500 megawatt-hours of battery storage in Texas, charging when electricity prices are cheap and sending them to the grid when they are most needed.
Its entry into the PJM grid comes at a time when the operator is under scrutiny for its handling of growing electricity demand. PJM suspended applications for new generators beginning in 2022, only reopening the queue. in April. Unlike the base, its timing couldn’t be worse – demand for electricity has skyrocketed over the past four years.
Base’s launch has gathered momentum since October $1 billion round led by Add. This round followed close on the heels of a 200 million dollar turnover 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 focus on the residential space is helping it take the last lap around the sclerotic grid operator.
Base Power founder and CEO Zak Dell told Canary Media that “we’re putting behind-the-meter capacity in a residential building where interconnection already exists, so we’re not waiting for an interconnection queue.”
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