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Almost everything written about ConnectedSolutions describes the homeowner programme. These are the business rates, read off the utilities' own commercial pages — including the Eversource statewide rates that sit behind a location gate — with the one figure nobody publishes clearly marked as unpublished.
Both Massachusetts utilities pay $200 per average kW per season for daily dispatch. National Grid calls it Daily Dispatch and adds $275 per kW for batteries under 50 kW and $45 per kW for Targeted Dispatch, across 30-60 events of 2-3 hours each summer, capped at 150% of site peak load. Eversource calls it daily curtailment, pays $45 per kW plus a $10 per kW weekend bonus on targeted dispatch, and publishes no small-battery tier — its enhanced rates are the ConnectedSolutions+ pilots at $250 per kW around Greater Boston and $275 per kW in southeastern Massachusetts, in ten named communities only.
Because most of what has been written about ConnectedSolutions is about houses. The programme has a residential track and a commercial track, they pay differently, and the widely-circulated summaries almost universally describe the residential one without saying so. A facility manager reads a rate, brings it to a quote, and finds it does not apply to their meter.
The commercial figures are mostly not secret. They sit on the utilities' own business pages; they are simply not the numbers that get repeated. The National Grid, ConnectedSolutions+ and Rhode Island rates below were read off the administering utility's own publication on August 3, 2026. The Eversource statewide rates took longer, because Eversource's business demand-response page is location-gated and shows nothing until Massachusetts is selected; they were read with the gate cleared on August 5, 2026. Where a utility still does not publish a figure, this page says so instead of borrowing one from somewhere else.
| Who is enrolling | What the programme pays | What that means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| Residential battery, Massachusetts | One summer performance rate, published on the utilities’ residential pages | A homeowner has one enrolment decision: opt in, or do not. |
| Business battery, National Grid Massachusetts | Three separate offerings — $200, $275 and $45 per kW | Which one applies turns on inverter size and how many calls the site can absorb. |
| Business battery, Eversource Massachusetts statewide | Two tracks — $200/kW daily curtailment, or $45/kW plus a $10/kW weekend bonus on targeted dispatch | Curtailment rates, not battery-specific rates. A battery earns them the same way any dispatchable load does. |
| Business battery, Eversource pilot towns | $250/kW or $275/kW summer, plus a shoulder-season rate in one pilot | Geographically bounded. Your address either qualifies or it does not — and inside the pilots you earn more than the statewide rate. |
Three offerings, published side by side on National Grid's Massachusetts business programme page. All three pay on average kilowatts delivered across the season, and all three run through the summer dispatch season, June through September.
National Grid caps battery incentives at 150%of the site's peak load. That single footnote does more to determine commercial battery revenue than the headline rate does, because it converts the sizing question from “how much battery fits” into “how much load does this meter actually carry.” A site with a 400 kW peak can enrol up to 600 kW for incentive purposes. Anything beyond that still reduces demand charges and still provides backup — it simply earns no demand-response payment.
Two statewide rates, and they were the hardest numbers on this page to get. Eversource serves several states from one set of business pages, so its demand-response page renders different content depending on the state selected in its own location selector — which is why a search engine, an AI summary, or anyone reading the page without Massachusetts selected finds no figure at all. With Massachusetts selected, Eversource states both rates outright. The season runs June 1 through September 30. Events run two to three hours and are called between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.
National Grid's Daily Dispatch and Eversource's daily curtailment both pay $200 per average kW per season, over the same 30-60 events, on the same average-delivered-kW basis. The targeted tracks match too, at $45 per kW. For a mid-size commercial battery running the default daily commitment, which utility bills the meter does not change the demand-response line of the business case. What it changes sits at the edges — the small-battery tier and the enrolment cap below.
Eversource publishes no Massachusetts small-battery or battery-specific statewide tier — there is no Eversource equivalent of National Grid's higher under-50 kW rate. Its enhanced battery rates are the ConnectedSolutions+ pilots, which are limited to the named communities. That is a published fact about the programme rather than a gap in our research, and it matters most to exactly the projects where a small system is on the table: a 40 kW battery earns $275 per kW in National Grid territory and $200 per kW in Eversource territory for the same work.
Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard customers should confirm eligibility with the Cape Light Compact, which administers demand-response participation for those communities.
ConnectedSolutions+ is Eversource's business battery pilot, and the word pilot is doing real work: enrolment is limited to two geographies covering ten named towns and neighbourhoods. This is the battery-specific offering Eversource's statewide rates do not have. Inside the pilot geographies a commercial battery earns more per kW than it would on either statewide daily rate, and the southeastern pilot adds a shoulder season that no other Massachusetts offering has. Outside those ten places the pilot rates are not available at all, and the statewide $200/kW daily curtailment rate above is what applies. Eversource states the pilot rate holds at least 4 seasons after enrolling.
Events are called June 1 to September 30, between 2 p.m. and 10 p.m.
Up to 60 events per year.
Summer events run June through September; spring and autumn events run April to May and October to November, with charging prioritised between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Up to 150 events per season.
The two pilots address different network conditions. The Greater Boston pilot is a peak problem — its events sit inside the afternoon and evening window when the local network is most loaded. Eversource describes the southeastern Massachusetts pilot as addressing a surplus instead: enough local solar that mild, sunny days produce more generation than the network wants, which the utility calls solar soaking. That is why the pilot pays $100 per kW outside summer and asks batteries to prioritise charging in the middle of the day. Read carefully, part of what that pilot pays for is absorption, not export — which changes how the battery has to be controlled.
Partly, and the part that differs is the part that matters. Rhode Island Energy runs ConnectedSolutions under the same name, but its published programme guide covers the Residential and Small Business track. That track is open to rate classes A-16, A-60, C-06 — and C-06 is small commercial, so a small Rhode Island business genuinely does enrol here.
| Rhode Island Energy — Residential & Small Business track | Rate |
|---|---|
| Enrolled on or before May 31, 2024 | $400/kW |
| Enrolled on or after June 1, 2024 | $225/kW |
| After a customer’s fifth summer of participation | $200/kW |
Above 50 kW of inverter capacity, Rhode Island Energy directs customers to a separate commercial and industrial Daily Dispatch pathway. Its guide names that pathway but does not state its incentive rate, which is the honest end of what we can tell you from a primary source.
One commercial figure that a reader would reasonably expect is not here. It is not here because no utility publishes it, and a number we cannot trace to the utility that pays it is worth less than an honest gap. It is listed below so you can see exactly what is unknown rather than assume the programme does not exist.
Rhode Island Energy’s published battery programme guide covers the Residential & Small Business track and directs systems above 50 kW to a C&I Daily Dispatch Pathway without stating its incentive rate. Figures circulating on third-party sites are not sourced to the utility.
Closed August 5, 2026. Eversource’s business demand-response page is location-gated, which is why the figures were previously unavailable; with Massachusetts selected it publishes $200 per average kW per season for daily curtailment and $45 per average kW per season for targeted dispatch, plus a $10/kW weekend bonus. Both rates are recorded above. Eversource publishes no Massachusetts small-battery or battery-specific statewide tier — there is no Eversource equivalent of National Grid's higher under-50 kW rate. Its enhanced battery rates are the ConnectedSolutions+ pilots, which are limited to the named communities.
Confirming a rate for a specific commercial account is a phone call to the programme administrator with your account number and rate class in hand, and it is part of the work we do before quoting a battery. Ask us to confirm the current rate for your meter rather than budgeting against a number from a blog.
Yes. Enrolling a battery in a utility demand-response programme does not affect its eligibility for the Section 48E investment credit, and the credit does not require the battery to be paired with solar.
Energy storage technology is its own qualifying category under Section 48E(c)(2). There is no requirement that a commercial battery be paired with solar or charged from a renewable source to claim the credit.
Energy storage technology is not subject to the December 31, 2027 placed-in-service deadline or the July 4, 2026 begin-construction trigger — both apply to applicable wind and solar facilities only, and Section 48E(e)(4)(C) expressly excepts energy storage technology (IRS Notice 2025-42, section 2.02). A standalone commercial battery keeps the 30% Section 48E credit under the standard clean-electricity phase-out, which starts at the later of 2032 or when U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from electricity are 25% of 2022 emissions or lower.
One caveat travels with this: the OBBBA prohibited-foreign-entity and material-assistance rules do apply to storage for construction beginning after December 31, 2025 (IRS Notice 2026-15). Component sourcing has to be documented at procurement, not at filing.
The mechanics of the credit, the adders, and what changes for a tax-exempt owner are worked through on the Section 48E storage page.
National Grid and Eversource run separate programmes. The headline daily rate happens to match at $200/kW, but the tiers around it do not: only National Grid pays a small-battery premium, only National Grid states the 150% peak-load cap, and only Eversource runs the higher-paying pilot geographies and the weekend bonus. The enrolment path follows the meter, not the corporate address, so a multi-site business can end up in both.
Demand-response revenue is paid on average kW delivered during events, and the enrolment cap is set off site peak load. Neither can be estimated from monthly bills; both come out of 15-minute interval data your utility can release to you.
National Grid caps battery incentives at 150% of the site's peak load. A battery larger than that still works for demand-charge management, but the capacity above the cap earns no incentive.
Daily Dispatch pays $200/kW against 30-60 events of 2-3 hours. Targeted Dispatch pays $45/kW against 2-8 events. A site that cannot reliably deliver on the daily commitment is better off in the lower band than under-performing in the higher one.
The dispatch season runs June through September. Enrolling mid-season means missing the events already called, and payment is averaged across the whole season, so a late start dilutes the average that the incentive is calculated on.
National Grid publishes three business battery rates on its Massachusetts business ConnectedSolutions page: $200 per kW for Daily Dispatch, $275 per kW for small-scale batteries under 50 kW, and $45 per kW for Targeted Dispatch. Daily Dispatch and small-scale both run 30-60 events of 2-3 hours across the summer; Targeted Dispatch runs 2-8 events of 3 hours. Payment is per kW of average curtailment across the season, and battery incentives are capped at 150% of the site's peak load. Eversource pays the same $200 per kW statewide for daily curtailment over 30 to 60 events, and $45 per kW plus a $10 per kW weekend bonus for targeted dispatch, with no small-battery tier. Verified against the National Grid business programme page on August 3, 2026 and Eversource's Massachusetts business demand-response page on August 5, 2026.
System sizing, demand-charge mechanics and the full revenue stack.
Model peak shaving against the demand rate on your own tariff.
The neighbouring state runs the opposite design — ten-year performance pay.
Why the 2027 solar deadline does not reach a commercial battery.
The residential side of the same programme, with the residential rates.
How exported solar is credited once the battery is in the picture.
Verified August 3, 2026against the administering utilities' own published programme pages; the Eversource statewide rates were verified August 5, 2026.
We confirm the current commercial rate with the utility that bills your site, size the battery against your interval data and the enrolment cap, and handle the enrolment.