Grid-balancing is the process of your Base battery sending energy back to the power grid during moments of high demand. Grid-balancing is at the core of Base Power’s energy service. It’s what makes us different from other backup options and traditional utilities.

The compensation Base receives for efficient grid-balancing is what enables us to keep energy rates low for members and make backup power more affordable and accessible. 

How grid-balancing works: 

When our battery system detects a spike in energy demand, our batteries pass some energy back to the grid. This helps stabilize the grid when it needs energy the most. In return, the grid compensates us for this service. 

Think of it like the buyback credits that solar panel owners earn when they sell excess energy to the grid. But instead of generating energy, our batteries store energy then deploy it exactly when the grid needs it the most. 

Batteries are good for the power grid. By helping reduce the grid’s reliance on reserves to meet demand, batteries make energy more accessible, reliable, and affordable for everyone.

To learn more about how batteries support the power grid, read How batteries support the grid.

What makes Base good at grid-balancing:

Our Base batteries are especially effective at balancing the grid because:

They’re fast: Installed directly on homes, the Base batteries are close to where energy is needed. This proximity ensures their quick to respond to the needs of the grid. We also install our batteries far faster than grid-scale batteries. (See: What's the biggest difference between Base and other energy companies?)

They’re efficient: Our batteries can detect even the smallest demand spikes and respond instantly—discharging some energy, then rapidly recharging to full capacity.

The compensation Base receives for efficient grid-balancing is what keeps energy rates low for members and makes backup power more affordable and accessible. Your battery’s charge and discharge cycles play a key role in this process.

For more details on your battery’s state of charge, read Understanding how Base charges and discharges its batteries.

Why does Base do grid-balancing?

Base does grid-balancing for three key reasons: to sustain our business, to save you money, and to support the grid. 

1. Sustain our business. Unlike traditional power companies, Base earns revenue from grid operators in exchange for helping balance the grid. When our batteries pass some energy back in moments of peak demand, we help balance supply and demand, keeping energy more reliable and affordable for everyone.This key part of our business is what distinguishes us from other solutions.
   
   
2. Save you money. Because we get compensated for stabilizing the grid, we can keep your rates lower than the market average. We’re also able to include backup power as part of our energy service—your only cost is a one-time installation fee. Because we’re able to recoup the high cost of the backup equipment, we don’t need to charge you for it.
   
   In other words, because the grid compensates us for sending energy back when demand is high, we’re able to:

• Keep rates low: We contractually guarantee rates stay below the market average for our members. 
• Include backup power in our energy service: The only cost to you for reliable backup is the one-time installation fee, which covers our electricians’ work to install the battery in your home.
  
  

3. Support the grid. You can think of grid-balancing as sharing energy with your neighbors during brief moments of high energy demand. When Base discharges energy during these short peaks,  it helps prevent blackouts and keeps the grid running smoothly for everyone.

Grid balancing might seem tricky to understand, but Base’s mission is simple: install as many batteries as possible to strengthen the grid and lower costs for Base members (both for backup and for monthly energy). More batteries mean a more reliable grid and more affordable energy for our members.

To learn more about how batteries support the grid, read How batteries support the grid.

Grid-Balancing and Texas

A helpful way to understand grid-balancing is by looking at Texas, which is the ideal place for Base’s grid-balancing technology to work. 

The Texas power grid experiences frequent supply and demand fluctuations, especially during peak times, creating a need for reliable and consistent support.

To better understand how these fluctuations affect energy prices, read Understanding ERCOT: The power grid's balancing act.

Texas leads the world in renewable energy production, and batteries play a crucial role by storing this energy. This storage ensures power is available during times when the grid transitions from renewable energy to fossil fuels or natural gas, as shown in the graph below. In this way, batteries enable the increased use of cleaner, renewable energy.

To learn more about how Base compares to other storage solutions, read What's the biggest difference between Base and other energy companies?

How grid-balancing relates to state of charge

When Base batteries detect a spike in demand, they pass energy back to the grid. In other words: they discharge. 

Moments of peak demand are typically very short, only 1-2 hours, but our batteries are built to sense these tiny grid fluctuations and respond quickly. They also deploy energy faster than other energy systems on the grid today, such as coal plants and gas peaker plants that are literally designed to start up and shut down easily.

The moments when our batteries discharge to the grid are brief (1-2 hours), while they remain near full capacity over 90% of the time. As shown below, on a typical day (90% of days), the batteries are near full capacity. On an interesting day, they discharge briefly, then rapidly recharge.

After discharging, our team prioritizes recharging the batteries as quickly as possible to maintain reliability for members. Less than 10% of the time do the batteries have less than 80% charge. Our batteries have never dropped below 70% charge during an outage. It is very rare for them to be below 90% when an outage occurs.

For a deeper dive on battery state of charge, read Understanding how Base charges and discharges its batteries.