Zach Dell on Base Power, Energy Abundance & Building a Company for Life
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Why does Zach believe the current grid needs a new business model for batteries?
So out of every single guest on the show so far, yours is the business that I understand the least. So let's use this conversation as an opportunity to fix that. Explain what you're working on and like what your mission and how you're doing it.
Yeah. So the grid is is something in the power system and and electricity broadly is a topic that a lot of people don't understand and it's it's pretty common. I think that's because there's a ton of nuance to it. It's a very old system, it's highly regulated. And so it's not something that is in kind of natural common sight guys. The truth is our business is is very simple. We're in the business of making and delivering megawatts. And our megawatts are the most affordable and reliable megawatts in the world. On the planet. At least that's our ambition. And our mission is to power human prosperity by driving energy abundance. And We look to a very simple correlation between consumption of energy per capita and GDP per capita.
And the takeaway is that the more energy a population is able to consume, the better their life gets. And so if you can make megawatts, gigawatts, terawatts, uh more affordable and reliable, it's the best way to make people's lives better. And that's a mission that we have all rallied around and gotten super passionate about. We think about things in terms of a mission, a vision, and a strategy, right? So the mission is why are we all here? We're all here to fix the grid and deliver affordable, reliable power and promote human prosperity by driving energy abundance. Before we go further, why t explain why the grid needs fixing? What's the problem with
It now. It's not that it's broken, it's that it's too small. How could something as important as electricity and power not be something that we can scale? Like how do we get into the situation to begin with?
I think because um capitalism hasn't hasn't been able to work its magic on the industry because it's it's highly regulated. And the companies around it that have built it. Don't have an incentive to innovate. They're not uh they're rate regulated and they get paid on on capex, not on RD, right? And so the amount of money that they spend on RD as a percent uh percentage of their revenue is like as low as any industry you'll ever find, right? They're not engineering-led organizations, they're capex, they're kind of project management and capex-oriented organizations. And so there has not been a bunch of innovation, and how can we scale our capacity? To consume electricity, it's just like, how do we go build as fast as we can and earn a return on that building?
We just change that, right? We are an energy technology company that is RD driven, engineering led, and technology focused. And we are going to build technology that allows us to scale our consumption of electricity, deliver more megawatts that are reliable and affordable, and help help meet the moment of the inflection in electricity demand.
Okay, so that that's why you were talking, that's what I was thinking. It's like, okay, so there's this huge surge and can that will continue. We need more uh power and electricity because of everything going on with AI. Before that, was there any other inflection point, or is it the the the demand for electricity in the United States just kind of grow like linearly?
Over the last fifty years, demand for electricity in the US has grown at Basically the rate of inflation. So it it has not really grown much. Okay, so
this is a first this is a like a once time in hist one time in history uh problem it's uh having right now.
I think that there was underlying growth kind of coming or or at least starting to come from the electrification of transportation uh and electric vehicles. Uh but that's played out less quickly than some might have thought. I think that will continue to play out as the cost goes down. And things like, you know, electric heat pumps and electrification of of heavy industry will will drive electricity demand, but the the AI infrastructure build out has massively accelerated it.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why does Zach believe the current grid needs a new business model for batteries?
0:02–10:50
2
How does Base Power’s battery‑as‑a‑service model lower electricity bills for homeowners?
10:50–21:20
3
What insights did Zach gain from early failed ventures and investing that shaped Base Power?
21:20–30:43
4
Why does Base Power focus on selling electricity instead of batteries to customers?
30:43–39:36
5
How does Base Power partner with utilities in deregulated versus regulated markets?
39:36–48:36
6
What is the ‘Dad Terminal’ and how does it influence the company’s strategy?
48:36–58:12
7
Why is vertical integration crucial for Base Power’s cost advantage and product development?
58:12–1:06:53
8
How is Base Power scaling its manufacturing and product roadmap to meet AI‑driven power demand?
1:06:53–1:16:15
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