Incentive Deal For $265M Austin Battery Manufacturing Facility Dies
Home energy provider startup Base Power is no longer pursuing a $4.85M incentive deal with the city of Austin for the expansion of a planned manufacturing facility, Community Impact reported.
Austin officials had been slated to consider the incentive package for the manufacturing facility for its Business Expansion Program at a February meeting, but the item was pulled from the city council’s agenda before a vote took place. A spokesperson for Austin Economic Development told the Austin Business Journal that the item is “no longer moving forward at this time.”
The decision to walk away from negotiations was reportedly a mutual decision between the city and the startup.
Base Power did not respond to Bisnow's request for comment.
Base Power had discussed creating a 486K SF manufacturing center at 8001 Metropolis Drive, a project which would have cost $265M. To receive incentives, it had agreed to create 500 new full-time positions while also preserving 100 existing positions.
The company reportedly is still seeking added space in East Austin. After the agreement was pulled, a Base Power project at the same address was registered with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. This project outline lists details for a $1.92M, 216K SF manufacturing and warehouse facility in the MetCenter business and industrial park.
Base Power is a home power battery startup co-founded in 2023 by CEO Zach Dell and Chief Operating Officer Justin Lopas. It has sold more than 100 megawatts of home storage batteries in Texas.
The company leases its products to homeowners, saving them from the upfront cost of home storage batteries, then utilizes software to fill the batteries when electricity can be bought cheaply from the grid, The New York Times reported.
Last fall, Base Power raised $1B in a Series C investment round. This came after a Series B round in April 2025 that raised $200M, according to PV Magazine.
After the company’s incentive deal with Austin came to a halt, Base Power announced it would “build one of the nation’s largest fleets of home batteries” for a cooperative utility near Dallas-Fort Worth, Canary Media reported. The startup aims to install 100 MW of home battery capacity in the territory of the Denton County Electric Cooperative utility over the next two years.
