Base ERCOT market stacking model

The key point is that Base is not just selling a battery, it is stitching together two parts of Texas power markets that are separate in most of the country. In ERCOT, one company can sign up the homeowner as the electricity customer, buy and sell power in the wholesale market, and remotely dispatch the battery when prices spike. That lets Base earn a retail spread, an energy trading spread, and now a utility capacity payment from the same home asset.1 2 3 4

• Retail choice is the customer side of the equation. ERCOT administers retail switching for nearly 8 million premises in competitive areas, and most Texas consumers in the ERCOT region can choose a retail provider. Without that, Base could install the battery but could not also own the monthly power bill relationship.2 5 6
• Wholesale access is the money making side. ERCOT runs an energy only market with meaningful intraday price swings, and competitive retailers buy in that market while qualified market participants can schedule and settle power. A home battery fleet becomes valuable because Base can charge when power is cheap and discharge when power is scarce.2 5 7
• The Austin Energy contract shows why the structure matters. Austin approved up to $4.08M per year for 40 MW of residential battery capacity, while keeping dispatch rights over the reserved slice. Because those batteries are still part of Base's broader ERCOT fleet, the company can stack that fixed payment on top of its retail and arbitrage economics.1 4 8

Going forward, the prize is not just more batteries, it is more market stacking. If Base can keep adding homes inside retail choice territories, each installation becomes a small power plant, a retail account, and a grid contract node at once. That is why ERCOT is the template market, and why expansion will favor places that preserve as much of this three layer structure as possible.4 6 7