Base payback under PJM rules

PJM makes Base’s model less about simple buy low, sell high battery trading, and more about building a compliant, aggregated power fleet that can clear multiple market products. In ERCOT, fast price spikes alone can do more of the payback work. In Illinois, Base still keeps the retail margin through electric choice, but wholesale upside depends on assembling enough homes, metering them correctly, and qualifying into PJM energy, reserve, regulation, and eventually capacity pathways.1 2 3 4 5 6

• The first hurdle is scale and structure. PJM’s DER aggregation model sets a 100 kW minimum aggregation size, with no minimum for each individual home battery. That means Base can combine many homes, but it cannot monetize one battery on its own. Payback in Illinois starts only after Base has enough concentrated installed capacity to form usable aggregates.3 4
• The second hurdle is market design. PJM settles real time energy every five minutes and offers separate ancillary service markets for regulation and reserves. That creates several revenue lanes, but they are more procedural than ERCOT’s simpler merchant battery play. Revenue depends less on a single visible spot spike and more on consistent dispatch performance, telemetry, and settlement readiness.1 5 6
• Illinois still preserves an important part of the Base formula because residential customers in ComEd and Ameren territories can choose an Alternative Retail Electric Supplier. That means Base can still pair the battery with the power bill and earn supply margin, which matters if PJM arbitrage revenue lands below ERCOT levels. In practice, Illinois may look like a retail margin led model with wholesale revenue as an enhancer, not the core driver.2 4 7

The likely path is that Base proves portability in PJM by stacking smaller pieces of value instead of replicating ERCOT one for one. If it can turn Illinois homes into a reliable 100 kW plus fleet, sell electricity to those same households, and add PJM market revenue on top, the company opens a repeatable expansion playbook for the rest of PJM and then MISO.1 2 3 4 5 7