Central Georgia EMC and Base Power plan 50 MW of $95 home batteries

Central Georgia EMC members can get a whole-home backup battery installed for $95, with no monthly fee, under a 50 MW program the cooperative and Base Power announced on October 13, 2026 (release). Base installs and maintains the batteries; the co-op controls when the fleet charges and discharges, and plans to use it to cut load at system peaks and to charge when energy prices are low and discharge when they are high. First installations are scheduled for 2027.

The battery is Base Core, which Base says stores 39.2 kWh, enough for up to 36 hours of backup with reduced energy use (program page). It sits outside the house and connects on the co-op's side of the meter, so members are billed only for the energy their home uses, at their normal rates. The arrangement is a virtual power plant with the co-op holding the controls.

The headline price is the installation; the commitment runs 12 years. Members pay a $50 deposit at sign-up, refundable until Base starts paperwork approval, and $45 within 48 hours after installation. Cancelling after installation costs a $500 deinstallation fee. A battery stays with the house when it is sold and transfers to the buyer at no cost. Base puts the installation's usual price at $695.

The co-op needs only a small share of its members to sign up. By our arithmetic, 50 MW is about 2,500 batteries if every home takes one of the 20 kW units listed on Base's utility page, which would be under 4% of the co-op's more than 69,000 billed accounts across 16 counties.

The program is Base's first utility partnership outside Texas. Its partners include Austin Energy, El Paso Electric, CoServ, Farmers Electric Cooperative and Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative, and the Georgia deal is its first major expansion since a $1 billion Series D in August. The companies put Base's fleet at more than 750 MWh across more than 30,000 homes.