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Color Me Intrigued: Base Power Company

I routinely listen to a handful of podcasts. One of the more recent adds to my routine is Doug Lewin’s Energy Capital Podcast. It’s a little on the civilized side for me, but Doug gets some very good guests. The last episode I heard featured Zach Dell, founder of Base Power Company. I must say that I am intrigued by what they are building. Most especially in the wake of last week’s derecho, which left parts of Houston without power for several days.

Base Power on X1 Carbon Gen12

Base Power Company is a retail electrical energy provider with a potentially novel twist. Their service has two aspects; a flat monthly cost for electrical service, and a 20 kWh home backup battery mated to an 11 kW inverter.

The battery is used to cache power from the grid. In the simplest case, providing whole home backup during an outage.

Further, the company uses the battery to arbitrage the spot rate for electricity. It charges the battery during periods when plentiful wind and solar generation pushes the spot rate for power very low. I’ve read that electricity is almost free when wind and solar is really delivering. When the rate climbs the home can draw on the battery to lower the cost of power.

During periods of peak load, when the spot rate is very high, the company can withdraw power from the battery, feeding it back into the grid. It’s basic “buy-low, sell-high” play that optimizes revenue while acting to balance the grid itself.

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Talking With Two Utility Linemen

Two linemen from BG&E had to get onto my property to restore the power lines to my neighbors garage apartment. While they were doing the work I took them some cold bottled water and chatted them up about their experience working on the post-Ike recovery here in Texas. They tell about what-you-would-expect in terms of a tale of chaos theory.

They were working restoring power for Entergy customers in another area last week. Come Sunday they were done and so wondering where they’d go next. Centerpoint didn’t get around to accepting their help until 11pm Sunday night, at which point they were instructed to gather at the Humble Civic Center parking lot Monday morning.

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