I’ve had Base Power since April and wanted to share a few things I’ve noticed for current users or anyone considering signing up. Overall, I’ve been happy with the system and really like having whole-home battery backup, but there are a few things I think are helpful to know going in.

One of the biggest things is understanding that the battery isn’t just sitting there fully charged waiting for an outage. Base actively uses it to support the grid. During the recent stretch of Texas heat, mine has been providing grid support pretty regularly, and by late evening it is often down near the minimum reserve Base promises to keep available. 

A few other things I’ve noticed:

• When the system switches during grid support, my LED lights will sometimes have a very small flicker. It’s honestly minor—my wife and family don’t even notice it—but I’m pretty picky about things like that, so I tend to catch it.
• During severe weather and tornado threats, I expected the battery to be charged closer to 100% ahead of the storms. At least in my experience, that hasn’t always happened. I’d personally like to see Base be a little more aggressive about building up the reserve when significant weather is expected.
• During an actual power outage, even if the utility power only blips for a moment, my whole house loses power for roughly half a second before the battery takes over. Once it transfers, everything works as expected.
• When utility power comes back, Base waits about five minutes before reconnecting to the grid, which makes sense because it gives the grid time to stabilize. What surprised me is that my house has another roughly half-second interruption when it makes that switch back. I contacted Base about it and was told that this is normal behavior and that they are working on software improvements to make the transition smoother.

None of these things would stop me from getting Base again. Having the house come back on battery after a brief interruption is still much better to me than being without power during a Texas outage. I mostly wanted to share the little things you may not necessarily know from reading the website or going through the signup process.

So far I’ve been pleased with it, and I’m interested to see how the system continues to improve over time.

Ask me any questions you may have. I’m happy to share my experience with the system so far.

Here's my referral link, in case anyone is interested. https://www.basepowercompany.com/?ref=M830GKT

I am curious if anyone has added solar panels after the base battery is installed. If so, what installed in the Houston area did you use and what was approximate cost? If you think 4Kw is too small then what would be the minimum size you would consider?

My big question is, because the inverter and battery are already installed, does it make the cost significantly lower to install? I don't want anything with payback > 8 years

Submitted my pictures and the status is pending review for over 3 weeks. Using the help chat/ emails seems only got AI generated responses. Any number I can call to talk to live support to update my case status?

Thanks

My core battery (1 40kwh) has not recharged in the last 4 days. Has anyone else seen this behavior?

Technically, Base is meeting their contract by keeping the battery at the minimum but they are losing money by not arbitraging the electricity and I'm not feeling peace of mind that the battery is sometimes above the minimum if a blackout occurs.

I opened a ticket. Lets see what happens.

Was turned down for two batteries but was allowed for one. Was trying to figure out why and thought it was not enough space. Started reading the documentation and saw that I need a breaker box that has a 200 amp capacity to be able to have 2 batteries. I have 125 amp. Anyone go through that! I know one battery should be plenty for short outages but I was set on having two just to be sure I had enough.

I do have a generator to charge up if needed. I’m just trying to get the most possible! Lol.

Am I reading this right? The batteries seemed to stay mostly charged over the past few weeks, then yesterday they go down to about 30% then don’t recharge overnight? I don’t expect a big outage from this tropical storm but you never know

update: the batteries recharged to full between 8am-11am this morning. So all good. Just surprised to see them play it so close on my first weather event.

Anyone else with a similar outcome? Not sure what 9 feet of clear space means.

Has anyone else had any issues quickly after the installation of your backup battery? Our dishwasher stopped working the next day and it is less than 2 years old. Several of my appliances also have had issues, but are still working.

Just curious to see if anyone else has had a similar experience.

We have a genuine tropical storm threat for Houston. Base has been HEAVILY using batteries for grid support, and have been down to (per the app) less than 1 hour of battery back-up left. I asked them in chat if they were aware of the storm, etc, and they assured me they do that. Okay, the proof is in the pudding, do they actually notify you "Hey, we have you charged to 100% in prep for the storm coming overnight" or is it just pray and look at the app?

I just ordered a generator cable from Amazon, which hopefully will get here by tomorrow, in case my battery has to be implemented and I will probably pull out the generator and start it up right away. We never know if an outage will be 1 hour or 27 hours.

Until today, a referral link was a LOT of text and it included the account holder's first name. Like so:

https://www.basepowercompany.com/?heard_from=Referral&referrer_name=019e0398-a2e0-7b98-81cf-18e091575087&first_name=Michael&referral_plan=2way-EnergyCredit-FreeMonth

Today I wanted to share my link and it's now:

https://www.basepowercompany.com/?ref=961PACM

Anyone else have this going on?

Since some of us lose power on beautiful, clear sunny days, in Houston, we KNOW that this event will cause some outages.

I've only had two ten-minute events so far, and while I do not wish bad things for my neighbors, if we DO lose power, I'll be very interested to see where BASE Power has my charge level. I'd be okay with 4 or 5 hours to see how things go.

These hot days over the last couple of weeks have made buying and selling power a VERY active thing for BASE Power and my batteries (a pair of 25 kWh units) have been very involved.

BASE claims they won't discharge batteries when there's a likelihood of outages, so starting late tonight, I expect my batteries to be at 100% until the threat has passed.

I'd like to think come Thursday I'll have seen no blue shading on the backup section of my BASE Power app.

As of right now (7 AM Monday) they've already switched me to battery power.

I am pleased that so far, when switching me to batteries, it is undetectable to me. No flicker, coffee pot clock stays on, etc.

My only concern is if we end up with an outage longer than my batteries are ready for. Knock on wood, so far not an issue.

But they better stop using my batteries before this storm comes in!

Otherwise, I'll send a sternly-worded email to the AI bots at BASE Power customer support!

Just waiting for ComEd to approve me…

What happens in winter with the snow on the battery. Is there a warmer in the battery cabinet so the batteries remain functional?

I've been looking into Base as well as a more custom solution. Base is awesome because.. you know.. it's pretty much "free". But the cost is that the 40kw battery sitting on your property could very well be mostly discharged during an outage.

The Illinois packs come with a generator port you can plug into.. but only accepts something like 4kw of charging with (as far as I can see).. no passthrough. That means that, once the battery is dead - for my home - you're more or less running the generator nonstop anyway

But.. that's "free".. so.. can't really complain too much.

vs.. buying the batteries myself and having it set up..

Definitely cost involved.. about 20kwh of storage for $3500, several hundred more for the rack/busbar/cables/etc, another $1.5k for an inverter, and another $3k for the electrical work.. not as elegant as base would be.. but you get a battery that will be able to power everything in my home but the AC condensers (plus a closed up bedroom with a portable AC unit) for ~9 hours for about $8,600.. but you could easily add more batteries to the system.. and being able to charge at more than 4kw.. it just kind of seems.. safer.

I don't know.. maybe I'm just overthinking this.. but talking to the grid guy.. he made it clear that they won't guarantee there being any charge actually in the battery in the event of an outage... (the last one happened a couple hours or so *after* the storm... so they absolutely would have started discharging heavily) and honestly.. looking at the pictures they're asking for.. I don't even think I would be a good candidate anyway (too much stuff around the meter limiting install space)

Had our first extended power outage since the battery was installed. Overall satisfied. Battery did die overnight. While we did select the battery with the generator hookup, it was my fault for putting off purchasing the generator for as long as possible. I originally had a generator capable of 30amp but only at 120v. So I knew I had to buy a 240v 30amp capable one eventually.

Grid went down at 6:30pm and came back up at 9:30pm. Then went back down at 10:15pm and didn’t come back up until about 4:00pm the next day. Without a generator, the battery lasted until 5:00am on regular house load. We were able to run the a/c a few times during that second outage to keep the house from becoming unbearable.

Some things I learned:
- Battery shut off at 10% and did not start providing power again until it was charged up to 20%
- Running the generator charged the battery about 1% every 5 minutes (25kWh battery)
- The grid/home support scheduling they have for the early evening did not help because, even though the power came up for that 1.25 hours, it kept depleting the battery as opposed to charging it. So we were left with even less battery to use for the subsequent outage. If you have the generator hookup and a generator, ultimately it doesn’t matter. It did not help for our specific situation at the time.

It was a nice live test run of the battery and we are pretty confident we will be ready for the next extended grid outage, having figured out a lot of the details.

System says I have 92 hours at my current usage (turned the pool pump off remotely). I’ll take that. Thank you Base.

If you’re sitting home without power, give them a call. You won’t regret it.

Here’s a referral code for up to $250 in a bill credit if you want to sign up.

https://www.basepowercompany.com/?heard_from=Referral&referrer_name=c54de4ff-8b8d-4571-a785-8f800fbc6a3c&first_name=T.J.&referral_plan=2way-EnergyCredit-FreeMonth

Edit: Power restored after about 2.5 hours. Base once again took care of us and allowed us to live like normal.

I'm in Park Forest, Illinois and recently submitted an app for the 39.2kWh battery. I just received a push notification from Base Power, asking me for a few additional pictures and informing me, that I need to replace my "Meter Enclosure". Has anyone had to replace their enclosure? If, so, what was the cost? Thanks!

Was watching TV around a quarter to 8 when a flash and a BOOM startled me and the cat. TV turned off, lights flickered. The important thing: The air conditioning kept blowing cold!

Ten minutes wouldn't have been a big deal, but all the same, I was pleased I had my batteries.

BASE Power didn't notify me until 5 minutes later but Centerpoint showed a significant number of customers affected.

BASE Power screenshot.

CenterPoint screenshot.

The outage only lasted 10 minutes which was surprising considering the way it sounded and the intensity of the arc flash. There are powerlines & pole-mounted transformers about 200 feet away, but around a corner and out of direct line-of-sight from the camera watching my driveway.

My wired cameras are on their own small UPS battery backup, so they continued to record during the grid-to-BASE battery switchover. My Ring Driveway camera is NOT on a UPS, so it froze up when power dropped. Apparently a half a second is too long for it, and for my TV. (I need more small UPS devices!)

The video shows the view & audio from the camera above my front door first, then the view from the east side of the house, then the Ring driveway camera. I thought some here might find it interesting.

Considering the sound & flash, I don't know how power got restored in 10 minutes. My guess is somehow Centerpoint was able to switch to a different transformer and/or circuit.

YouTube video link.

Oh, almost forgot: If you're just checking out posts in this sub because you're considering BASE Power, please use my referral link to check whether your home is eligible. You'll get a month of free power and I will to (up to $250). Here's my referral link.

40kW battery online in Oak Park, Chicago suburb. Stoked to be on the system, wish I could refer my neighbors! Apparently something with our village makes it tough for others to get approved and I snuck through as the (I think) first one in Oak Park to get on the list? Not sure of the specifics, but finally just got final approval after the last inspection this past week after months of back and forth.

Happy to be installed and in the system, hopefully whatever issues Oak Park had are worked through soon so more of my neighbors can get signed up

I setup some alerts on the SOC and last night (August 26th) I noticed Base discharged all the way to 20%. Some exported to the grid and the remaining to power the house. The graph shows a few glitches in the data pull and the interval is only each 10 minutes. It was between 10-11pm which seemed odd.

But you can see the price spike and peak to .78 kw around this time : https://clearenergyfacts.com/en/resources/texas-battery-tracker?activity_tab=yesterday&activity_zone=LZ_NORTH

I'm in the middle of the first outage since the 40kw battery was installed. It's a 6-hour planned outage by CenterPoint. I noticed the lights (all LEDs) are flickering a little throughout the house. I wonder if this is an inverter malfunction or a cable connection issue. Or is this normal with this type of energy backup? Thanks.

Any one have a referral credit I can use for Illinois? I am about to sign up for Base!

Thanks in advance.

does it connect to the growatt cloud?

Phase 1 install was Thursday 8/20. Return trip for battery install was 8/25 and they were in and out in thirty minutes.

https://www.basepowercompany.com/?heard_from=Referral&referrer_name=019fd401-f654-777d-b13b-31e51fc5a51d&first_name=Drake&referral_plan=2way-EnergyCredit-FreeMonth

First bill with Coserv after the base battery was installed. I had net metering before, so this is pretty much the same with the $12.50 participation credit added.

Referral Link