Austin startup teams with home builder to boost Texas grid reliability

AUSTIN (KXAN) — An Austin-based electricity startup company announced this week its partnership with home construction company Lennar amid efforts to offer stronger grid reliability to Texans.

Base Power launched in May and centers its work around installing batteries that offer on-site storage capacity for customers. When the electrical grid is up and running, the batteries are designed to support that power grid; when the grid goes down, the battery kicks in and provides electricity to the attached home.

Through Base Power’s partnership with Lennar, new communities in the greater Austin area and Dallas-Fort Worth region will include Base Power’s battery technology. Here in Central Texas, Firefly Pointe in Hutto and Rancho Del Cielo in Jarrell include Base Power as an electrical service provider option as part of the Lennar collaboration.

“Over the past summer, more than 3.5 million Texans lost power due to extreme weather and other factors,” said Eric Feder, president of LENx, which manages Lennar’s innovation and venture capital investing, in a statement. “Our investment in Base helps Lennar homeowners avoid this increasingly common occurrence with a worry-free solution. Lennar is always innovating and the inclusion of Base in select markets gives buyers peace of mind that their new home can weather almost any storm – literally and figuratively.”

Zach Dell, co-founder and CEO of Base Power, told KXAN his team connected with Lennar early on in their company’s formation process to discuss this level of collaboration. The rapid growth happening across Texas comes with additional demand and strain on the grid — something burgeoning suburbs like Hutto and Jarrell are familiar with.

“Growth is good. It leads to a lot of great things, but also creates challenges,” he said. “And one of the biggest challenges it creates is stress on the existing power grid.”

The partnership with Lennar is an outgrowth of Base Power’s existing product model, where customers can lease on-site batteries and have them installed onto their homes. Tapping into home builders, Dell said his goal is for this to offer more resiliency protections for both existing and new homeowners at a more affordable rate.

“Our goal at Base is to provide as many Texas homeowners as possible with the peace of mind of outage protection and affordable power,” he said.

While Base Power is building out its network in the greater Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth regions, Dell said his company is eyeing future expansion into new markets in places like the Houston area. As those markets come online, he said Base Power will continue its collaboration with Lennar to offer services to homeowners on new developments coming into town.

More details on Base Power and its services are available online.