The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 15 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Dell: Residential battery companies are focused on the wrong business model
“The distributed architecture is the answer. And all the companies that are around that problem, they're focused on the wrong business model. They're focused on high margin upfront sales.”
Dell: Utility-scale batteries face fundamental interconnection and transmission constraints
“They're fundamentally constrained really by two things. One is interconnection capacity, so there's not enough places on the grid to go put these big shipping containers, and the second is transmission congestion.”
Dell: In year 30 Base Power will almost certainly make cells
“In year 30, it almost certainly will.”
Dell: Vertical integration is only important when competing on cost
“It's only important if you're playing a cost focused game, right? Like it's not vertical integration because it's fun or because it's cool. It's because we're trying to compete on cost. And vertical integration is a great strategy to win on cost, right? Electr…”
Zach Dell intends for Base Power to be his last company
“Ok, so this is your last company? Absolutely.”
Dell: Base plans to expand into generation, transmission, storage, and retail
“At a very high level, energy is four things. Make, move, store, and sell, right? You have to make it, generation, you have to move it, transmission, distribution, so you have to generate electricity, you have to move it to where it's made, store, battery stora…”
Dell: The lack of beloved energy brands creates massive counter-positioning opportunity
“There really aren't any beloved brands in energy, which makes the opportunity even bigger because it's counter positioned. It's unique, right? And so if you're able to do a thing that no one has ever done in your space, you stand out, right? And so being able …”
Dell: Base Power signs 10-year 'megawatts as a service' utility contracts
“The reg business is, we are a vendor to the utilities. We build in these battery fleets, and then we sign ten-year contracts with them, and they pay us for that fleet over time. It's megawatts as a service.”
Dell: Base Power co-founders never discuss good news in weekly strategy meetings
“Justin and I, every Sunday, you know, our one-on-ones are on Sundays, and we have these kind of strategy conversations on Sundays, and we don't ever talk about what's going well.”
Dell: Base Core battery is custom-designed and manufactured in-house
“It's called the base core, and it is our custom-built battery, and it is the output of the last three years of learning how to install, operate, and manage tens of thousands of distributed home batteries. It's completely designed by us from the ground up. It's…”
Dell: Valor's Antonio Gracias focuses every board conversation solely on constraints
“The first year or two of working with Antonio, basically every conversation I had with him, and still to this day, this is, you know, the main focus of all of our conversations, every conversation was the same. Hey Antonio, how's it going? Good, how are you? W…”
Dell: Base Power is building a 100-megawatt battery fleet for CoServe
“So for CoServe Electric, for example, we have built them or in the process of building them a hundred megawatt and soon to be expanded fleet of batteries that they use in the same way that we do in the deregulated markets.”
Dell: Base Power puts a physical turtle on the bottleneck employee's desk
“So the turtle is a literal physical turtle. Now there's actually a couple of them that goes on the desk of the person that is on critical path. That turtle can only be moved when critical path is resolved.”