ConnectedSolutions explained: battery pay in MA, RI, NH, and CT

ConnectedSolutions is the brand name New England utilities put on their demand-response programs. Enroll a qualifying home battery, let the utility discharge it during summer peak events, and get paid once a season for the power you contributed.

Three things make it worth a dedicated page. The payment is larger than most state battery incentives. The payment structure is widely misunderstood. And the state map is not what the name suggests: Connecticut, which people routinely assume is a ConnectedSolutions state, runs a different program for batteries entirely.

This page states each program's terms only where the administrator publishes them, with the source and the date we read it. Program years change. Read this as a map of where to look, then confirm with the administrator before it affects a purchase decision.

The one thing to understand about the payment

Every one of these programs pays on average kilowatts (kW) delivered per event, averaged across the season. Not on kilowatt-hours of capacity. Not on the size of the battery on your wall.

Eversource states the rule plainly on its New Hampshire page: "Incentives for home batteries are based on the average kilowatt (kW) used per event, averaged over the season." (Source: Eversource, ConnectedSolutions Battery Storage Incentives, New Hampshire, read August 6, 2026.) Rhode Island Energy words it the same way. (Source: Rhode Island Energy, Battery Program, read August 6, 2026.)

That distinction is the difference between a rough estimate and a real one. Two households with identical 13.5 kWh batteries can earn very different amounts depending on what continuous output each system actually sustains for a two to three hour event, how reliably it is connected, and how the inverter is configured. The utilities publish typical-case examples using an assumed 5 kW average contribution, and they attach explicit caveats: Eversource notes that "different batteries can contribute different amounts during events," and that some manufacturers collect a portion of the payment.

So the honest way to use any number on this page: treat the published rate as real, treat any annual earnings figure as an illustration, and ask your installer what average kW your specific system is expected to hold.

Massachusetts

Who administers it: the Sponsors of Mass Save. The Mass Save battery page lists eligibility as being an existing customer of Cape Light Compact, Eversource, or National Grid. (Source: Mass Save, Battery Storage, read August 6, 2026.) National Grid runs its own parallel page for the same program. (Source: National Grid, Battery Program, ConnectedSolutions, read August 6, 2026.)

Payment structure as of August 6, 2026: $275 per kW for a battery's average contribution during summer events, on both the Mass Save and National Grid pages. National Grid adds that the incentive rate is locked in place for the first five summers a customer is enrolled with a new system.

Event terms as published: summer events run June 1 to September 30, between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m., no more than 60 times per summer, with each event lasting a maximum of three hours. National Grid states that customers can opt out at any time.

Enrollment path: install a qualifying system through an installer, then enroll through your battery or inverter manufacturer rather than through the utility directly. Both pages route enrollment to manufacturer portals.

Worth knowing: Mass Save states that the Clean Peak Energy Credits generated by your participation are assigned to the Mass Save Sponsors and their partners, not to you, and that this does not affect your participation incentive. National Grid answers the grid-charging question directly: yes, you can charge from the grid, but it notes that the SMART program and the federal investment tax credit carry restrictions on grid charging. That is a real constraint worth raising with your installer.

Massachusetts also has separate municipal-utility battery programs that are not ConnectedSolutions, including NextZero for customers of participating municipal utilities. Those are covered in our state-by-state VPP inventory and the Massachusetts report.

Rhode Island

Who administers it: Rhode Island Energy. The Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources maintains a public summary of the same program. (Sources: Rhode Island Energy, Battery Program and Rhode Island OER, ConnectedSolutions, both read August 6, 2026.)

Payment structure as of August 6, 2026: $225 per average kW performed each summer, with a published cap of $6,875 per customer per year and a rate lock for the first five summers.

Event terms as published: season June through September, events between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m., no more than 60 events per summer, each 2 or 3 hours, with the ability to opt out of any event.

Enrollment path: install first, then enroll by selecting your battery manufacturer from Rhode Island Energy's approved partner list.

The Rhode Island detail that changes the math: grid charging is not allowed. Rhode Island Energy states that the battery "must be charged from an on-site renewable resource, such as a solar PV system to participate in this program," and that a standalone battery without solar can still participate but its discharge during events is limited to the home's own energy use at that moment, which reduces earnings. If you are considering a battery without solar in Rhode Island specifically to earn ConnectedSolutions income, that limitation is the first thing to price in. Massachusetts, by contrast, permits grid-charged batteries.

Two other published specifics: Rhode Island Energy states that Sunrun stopped supporting new customer enrollments in its program as of December 1, 2024, and that program income "is not subject to income tax" with no 1099 issued. That second claim is the utility's own statement about its program, not tax advice from us, and it differs from how Hawaiian Electric treats its incentives. Ask a tax professional about your situation.

More context in the Rhode Island report.

New Hampshire

Who administers it: Eversource. (Source: Eversource, ConnectedSolutions Battery Storage Incentives, New Hampshire, read August 6, 2026, with the page localized to a New Hampshire town.)

Payment structure as of August 6, 2026: $225 per average kW used, over a June 1 to September 30 season, with 30 to 60 events, each lasting 2 to 3 hours, called between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. Eversource states it will not draw from your battery if an extreme weather event is in the forecast.

Enrollment path, and the catch: the page states that your battery or inverter must be from an approved manufacturer, and then says something the other three states do not: "Currently Tesla is the only approved manufacturer accepting enrollments." Eversource lists eleven other manufacturers as working to stand up their programs and says it will update the list as they come online.

If you live in New Hampshire and you are choosing hardware partly for ConnectedSolutions income, that single sentence is the most important line on this page. Confirm it directly with Eversource and with your manufacturer before you buy, because it is exactly the kind of status that changes between program years.

The other New Hampshire program, which is easy to miss: Eversource runs a separate upfront rebate under the New Hampshire Clean Energy Fund, on a different page from the ConnectedSolutions one. It states: "The incentive amount you will receive is based on the capacity of your battery. For each eligible kWh you will receive $230, up to a maximum of $3,000." (Source: Eversource, New Hampshire Clean Energy Fund Home Battery Incentives, read August 6, 2026.)

The two programs are structured as opposites, and that is the part worth getting right. The Clean Energy Fund rebate pays upfront and states that there are no annual performance payments. ConnectedSolutions pays on performance and nothing upfront. The Clean Energy Fund page also requires that the battery was purchased after October 1, 2022, that you participate in demand response events for a minimum of three years, and it names Enphase and FranklinWH as approved manufacturers, which is a different list from the Tesla-only enrollment status on the ConnectedSolutions page. It also states that funding is limited. Ask Eversource which of the two you are being enrolled in, because the answer changes both what you are paid and what you commit to.

New Hampshire also has a separate, non-ConnectedSolutions battery pilot from Liberty Utilities. Its page states plainly: "Liberty's Battery Storage Program is currently closed to new applicants." (Source: Liberty Utilities New Hampshire, Battery Storage, read August 6, 2026.) See the New Hampshire report.

Connecticut: not ConnectedSolutions

This is the part people get wrong, including sources that should know better.

Eversource's Connecticut battery page states it directly: "ConnectedSolutions, the former program for Connecticut battery customers, paused accepting new enrollments on December 1st, 2023. Existing ConnectedSolutions customers may stay in ConnectedSolutions and receive performance incentive payments of $225/kW until 2027, or may transfer to Energy Storage Solutions if they have an approved provider." (Source: Eversource, Connecticut Home Battery Storage Solutions, read August 6, 2026.)

So if you are a Connecticut homeowner shopping for a battery today, ConnectedSolutions is not your program. Energy Storage Solutions is. It is administered by the Connecticut Green Bank for Eversource and United Illuminating customers. (Source: Energy Storage Solutions, read August 6, 2026.)

It is also structured differently from ConnectedSolutions in three ways that matter:

It pays upfront as well as on performance. The program's residential rate table lists a 2026 enrollment incentive, effective April 1, 2026, of $30 per kWh for standard customers and $130 per kWh for Grid-Edge customers. (Note one discrepancy we found: Eversource's own page describes the same Grid-Edge adder as "$130 per kW," while the program administrator's rate table says per kWh. Confirm the unit with the program before budgeting around it.)

Performance rates are tiered by customer category. The published residential performance incentive is $300 per average kW for standard customers, $450 for customers in a Connecticut distressed municipality, and $550 for customers on an Eversource or United Illuminating low income discount rate. Eversource's page breaks the standard $300 into $267 summer and $33 winter.

It runs winter events and a ten year term. Eversource's participation table lists summer active events from June through September at 30 to 60 events of 1 to 3 hours, winter active events from November through March at 1 to 10 events of 1 to 3 hours, events between 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. on weekdays, weekends, and holidays, no required reserve capacity, and a term of 10 years. Eversource states it will not draw from your battery for at least two days before a predicted extreme weather event.

Full context in the Connecticut report.

Which batteries we track are eligible

An important caveat first: these programs approve manufacturers and inverter platforms, not individual model numbers. Appearing on a manufacturer list is a good sign, not a guarantee that your exact model and configuration qualifies. Confirm the specific model with the program before purchase.

With that stated, here is how the models we track map onto the manufacturer lists published on the pages we read on August 6, 2026.

Named on the Massachusetts lists (Mass Save, National Grid, or both):

• Tesla Powerwall 3 and Tesla Powerwall 2
• FranklinWH aPower 2
• Enphase IQ Battery 5P and Enphase IQ Battery 10C
• Panasonic EverVolt 2.0
• Generac PWRcell
• SolarEdge Home Battery
• sonnen sonnenCore+
• Qcells Q.HOME CORE
• Fortress Power eVault Max
• EG4 PowerPro, which appears on the National Grid Massachusetts partner list but not on the Mass Save list

Named on the Rhode Island Energy partner list: Tesla, Enphase, FranklinWH, Generac, Qcells, sonnen, SolarEdge, and Fortress Power from the group above. Panasonic and EG4 are not on the Rhode Island list we read.

Named on the Eversource New Hampshire list: Enphase, FranklinWH, Fortress, Generac, Panasonic, SolarEdge, sonnen, and Qcells, plus Tesla. Remember that Eversource states Tesla is currently the only approved manufacturer accepting New Hampshire enrollments.

Connecticut maintains its own eligible equipment list for Energy Storage Solutions rather than a manufacturer list, published by the program administrator. Check it directly rather than assuming a Massachusetts approval carries over.

Models we track that we did not find named on any of these lists: LG Energy Solution Home 8, BYD Battery-Box Premium HVS, Anker SOLIX X1, Savant Power Storage, and SunPower SunVault. Absence from a published list is not proof of ineligibility; it means we have no documented approval and you should ask.

How to sanity-check an earnings claim

If an installer quotes you an annual ConnectedSolutions figure, three questions separate a real estimate from a sales number.

What average kW is this system expected to deliver, across a full two to three hour event, for a whole season? That number times the published rate is your payment. Anything derived from battery capacity in kWh is the wrong calculation.

Who receives the payment? Eversource, National Grid, and Rhode Island Energy all disclose that manufacturers, installers, or implementers may collect part or all of the incentive, frequently in exchange for an upfront hardware discount. That is a legitimate structure. It is also the difference between a check to you and a discount you already received.

Is the rate locked, and for how long? Massachusetts and Rhode Island both publish a five summer rate lock for new systems. A quote that projects fifteen years of today's rate is projecting well past what any of these administrators have committed to.

The honest framing

ConnectedSolutions is one of the better grid-services payments available to a US homeowner, and in Massachusetts it is large enough to change a payback calculation. But it is a demand-response program, not a purchase rebate. It pays out over years, in amounts that depend on how your specific hardware behaves, under terms that regulators revisit between program years, through a payment chain that may route around you entirely.

The same caution we apply to every VPP applies here: treat this income as upside on a battery that already earns its place through backup value and bill savings. A purchase that only works because of a grid-services rate is resting on the least durable part of the math. Run your own numbers in the calculator with the program income set to zero, then look at what the program adds on top.