01
Step 01
Read the grid
ComEd publishes battery hosting capacity by circuit every quarter. We screen feeders and PJM value before we ever call a host.
Seed round · confidential teaser · October 2026
A power plant made of parking spots.
No bill. No load study. No host capex. Gridalot leases a few parking spaces where the grid needs storage, drops in one standard battery on its own meter, and sells its capacity to the grid. The host earns rent and spends nothing.
- Sited by the grid, not the host's bill
- One standard block, one permit pack
- Run by an AI desk that already works
01 / 04
Every parking lot has a corner nobody uses.
02 / 04
We lease the corner.
- a few parking spaces, 10–15 year option
- the host earns rent and spends nothing
03 / 04
We drop the block.
- one standard 1–5 MWh battery block
- on its own meter: the host's bill never matters
- the same drawings and permit pack every time
04 / 04
The grid picks the lot.
We site where the utility says its wires can take a battery and where the market pays most for one. Then the grid keeps paying, for 10–20 years.
The film · 1:59
Two minutes. One parking spot. A power plant.
The whole model, from the empty corner to the grid payment. Illinois first, then California.
The film starts as you arrive1:59 · or press play for sound
01 · The problem
The grid is short of power. The queue is years long.
Big battery farms wait years in the transmission queue. Behind the meter, on distribution feeders, a battery skips that queue and answers the shortfall where the power is used.
6.6 GW
short in PJM's capacity auction of December 2025, which cleared at a record $333/MW-day.
02 · How it works
Four steps. The same four on every site.
The host's electricity bill is not an input to our model. Their parking spot is. That is why it scales.
02
Step 02
Lease a corner
A 10–15 year option on a few parking spaces. The host earns rent and spends nothing.
03
Step 03
Drop the block
One standard 1–5 MWh design, its own meter, the same permit pack and contracts every time.
04
Step 04
Get paid by the grid
Rebate and tax credit up front; VPP, capacity and regulation revenue for 10–20 years.
03 · The edge
Others start from the host's bill. We start from the grid.
ComEd publishes battery hosting capacity by circuit every quarter. We screen feeders and PJM value before we ever call a host.
feeder can take a batterygrid value is higha Gridalot site
Designed out
Everything that makes small storage slow. Skipped.
A C&I battery usually begins with a year of interval data, a bespoke sizing and a one-off design. That is why soft costs eat about a quarter of a typical project. We designed them out.
01
Load study
We never need a year of interval data. The host’s bill is not an input.
SKIPPED02
Bespoke design
One standard 1–5 MWh block, the same drawings every time.
SKIPPED03
One-off permit
The same permit pack and contracts on every site.
SKIPPED04
Transmission queue
Behind the meter, on distribution feeders.
SKIPPED05
Host capex
The host earns rent and spends nothing.
SKIPPED06
$200/kWh soft costs
Budgeted at ~$15–19/kWh with the desk.
SKIPPED04 · One site, Illinois
One standard site. Most of the cost comes back in year one.
Share of year-0 cost returned around permission to operate
1.0 MW / 3.9 MWh standard site$1.86M year-0 cost
80–106%back around commissioning
Illinois storage rebateTax credit (sale or tax equity)
Then the grid keeps paying
≈ $120k a year per 1 MW site
PJM regulation and VPP · 10–20 years · team model
year 1year 15
77%
of capex back in year 1 on a real ComEd host (our partner's model)
13.2%
after-tax IRR over 10 years; ~33% if incentives fund at COD
3.4 yrs
simple payback (partner model, 900 kW / 2.0 MWh with rooftop PV)
Indicative, subject to diligence. Pre-tax cash; the rebate is taxable income, sheltered by 100% bonus depreciation. Credit sale price assumed at $0.90 per $1. Team model, Sep 2026.
05 · The machine
Same block. Same permit pack. An AI desk does the paperwork.
Our first hire is already working: an AI development desk, trained for months on live projects. It does the reading, the maths and the first drafts. People decide and sign.
Development cost, USD per kWh
Typical C&I storage project$200
~25% of project cost
AI-native developer today$25–50
Brightfield AI, now part of Voltus
Gridalot, budgeted$15–19
100 / 60 sites, ~3–4% of capex
Benchmarks: Tim Hade (Brightfield AI) on the Catalyst podcast, Latitude Media, 30 Jul 2026. Gridalot figure = 18-month development budget, not yet a track record.
From the desk's log · real entries, anonymised
22 Sep
Read a utility’s 79-page storage contract and re-sized a two-site bid: where the contract measures energy was worth one extra battery per site.
25 Sep
Read a school campus permit set sheet by sheet: battery derated on the cover sheet, the utility meter in another building, one feeder sized 175 A for 240 A.
6 Oct
Answered a utility’s design RFI for five island grids, in French, on an IEC equipment basis.
7 Oct
Reviewed a preliminary single-line diagram: the 2,000 A service caps the battery at five units under NEC 705.11.
8 Oct
Answered an engineer’s follow-up on islanding and aux power, and found the rebate’s real condition: a five-year VPP that outranks PJM.
13 Oct
Turned a federal tender specification into a compliance statement and a priced bid.
14 Oct
Quoted a seven-site US portfolio on a supply-chain-compliant build, import duty per component.
150
work items logged by the desk since August
82
customer quotes drafted and checked
17
jurisdictions, from Illinois to French Guiana
153
self-tested models behind every number
06 · The proof
Base Power proved the model in homes. We run it with 100× the battery per site.
Base Power has raised over $2.5B since 2023 to own and dispatch home batteries, and was valued at $13B in Aug 2026. One Gridalot site holds as much as 100 of its home batteries: a gigawatt-hour is about 25,500 home installs, or about 255 of our sites.
Sources: TechCrunch and Electrek (3 Aug 2026), pv magazine (4 Aug 2026), Base Power’s Chicagoland launch (24 Jun 2026), Canary Media. Our comparison, from public information.
1 site = 100 homes
Where storage gets paid: 4 markets live, 2 coming.
IllinoisLive
$250–300/kWh
ComEd’s storage rebate under the state’s CRGA law, from 19 Oct 2026; batteries on their own meter qualify.
British ColumbiaLive
up to 80%
BC Hydro’s Energy Storage Incentive pays up to 80% of a business battery’s cost, for 10 years of dispatch.
CaliforniaLive
$55k per charger
State fast-charger grant open to 14 Jan 2027; emergency grid events pay $2/kWh through 2027.
United StatesLive
30–40%
Federal storage tax credit kept to 2033 by the July 2025 tax law, with an energy-community bonus.
New JerseyComing
$200/kW-yr
Proposed for 10 years in the state storage programme (Aug 2026): homes first, businesses next.
VirginiaComing
20.8 GW
Storage law signed Apr 2026; Dominion’s 450 MW VPP approved Aug 2026, payment rates due Nov 2026.
Sources: Illinois P.A. 104-0458 and ComEd rebate tariff (eff. 19 Oct 2026); BC Hydro ESI manual (Sep 2026); CEC Fast Charge California Project and CPUC ELRP; federal tax law of 4 Jul 2025; NJ BPU storage straw proposal (Aug 2026); Virginia HB 895 / SB 448 and SCC VPP order (Aug 2026).
07 · Next: California
California: same corner, double duty.
The same leased corner, three jobs. The battery lets chargers open on today's connection, carries a depot's peak, and keeps critical loads running through a shutoff.
1
Central Valley
Retail lot + fast chargers
Chargers open on the existing connection instead of waiting for a service upgrade; the battery covers session peaks and the evening peak.
2
Inland Empire
Fleet depot
The battery carries the depot’s charging peak while the grid upgrade catches up.
3
North Bay
Campus in a wildfire shutoff zone
Critical loads keep running when the utility cuts power; grid emergencies answered the rest of the year.
5.4 yrs
payback at a busy corner (12 sessions per charger a day)
13%
IRR over 15 years at that busy corner
200 kW
grid connection instead of 600 kW: the site opens on the existing service
4 × 150 kW
fast chargers + one 450 kW / 940 kWh battery, PG&E EV rate
We assume no California storage rebate: SGIP’s large-scale storage budget closed to new applications at the end of 2025. Indicative, pre-tax, unlevered; 15 years, no escalation, charger hardware refreshed in year 10. Average corner (8 sessions a day): 9.3-year payback, 2% IRR. Without the state grant: 6.6 and 11.5 years. Chargers: average NEVI award cost per port (330 awards). Battery: Illinois team-model unit costs. PG&E BEV-2-S tariff, 1 Mar 2026. 32 kWh a session at $0.55/kWh; fuel credits about $0.05/kWh. The state grant is first come, first served, open to 14 Jan 2027.
08 · Why us
We've built this machine before.
GREENYELLOW · VIETNAM & CAMBODIA · 2019–25
90
private PPAs
240 MWp
in operation
$185M
of equity deployed in four years
Sébastien Prioux
sebastien@gridalot.com
Founder & CEO
Built and ran a 240 MWp develop-own-operate C&I business in Asia; leads development, structuring and capital.
✓CSLB-licensed contractor, General Building B + C-10 Electrical (#1155776) · Mines ParisTech engineer
sebastien@gridalot.com
CTO
AI-focused software engineer; built the agent platform our desk runs on. Ex-Rescale and ApplyBoard; co-founded two startups. Waterloo EE.
toby@gridalot.com
General Counsel
Seasoned transactional lawyer; Super Lawyers Rising Star 2021–26. Structured UP Green’s climate-fund deal: transaction, corporate structure, contracts.
cat@gridalot.comAK
Arthur KillingsworthOrigination, Chicagoland
Owns the host relationships in the pipeline.
PB
Peter BraunDevelopment & operations
Design, utility filings and VPP enrolment.
+ the AI desk
Development, every day
Reading, maths and first drafts on every site; people decide and sign.
A small, seasoned transaction team used to deploying asset portfolios. Contract templates by our counsel: lease option ready; interconnection, supply, tax-credit sale and VPP agreements in preparation. Founder-led; operating partners are aligned through minority equity and an option pool.
09 · The ask
$6M
to make 100 grid-first sites ready to build in 12–18 months.
30 Illinois sites already studied: feasibility done, lease options ready to sign.
30 studied in northern Illinois100 sites · ≈ 98 MW / 392 MWh of storage
How it is released
- 1$1.5M at close
- 2$1.5M when 50 site options are signed
- 3$1.5M when 40 utility applications are filed
- 4$1.5M when 70 utility applications are filed
Every tranche buys something that keeps its value: signed site options, utility applications and permitted projects that others can buy.
Where it goes
Team, incl. counsel and four hires$1.73M
Site options and diligence$1.20M
Engineering, permits, interconnection$1.30M
Legal, financing, AI desk, operations$0.92M
Contingency (15%)$0.77M
Total $5.91M · about $59k per site · lean case $4.5M for 60 sites
Then a committed construction-equity line ($39–49M) for sites that clear our return bar. Construction debt, the rebate and the tax credit carry the rest.
You get: platform equity, returns on every project, first right on the pipeline, a board seat and co-investment room for your LPs.