Massachusetts pays some of the highest electric rates in America, and it backs solar with real state programs that are still funded in 2026. Rooftop Power has undertaken 480+ projects across Massachusetts and works inside these programs every week. Here is the honest picture, with the federal change named plainly and the state math laid out the way we would show it in your proposal.
Net metering is the mechanism that lets a correctly sized Massachusetts system cover a large share of an annual bill. When your panels produce more than the house is using, that surplus flows to the grid and your utility credits your account. When you pull power at night or in winter, those banked credits offset what you owe. It is the bridge between a sunny July afternoon and a dark February evening.
In our territory that means Eversource and National Grid, the two utilities that serve almost every home we install for on the South Coast (Unitil covers a small northern slice of the state). Each one administers its own net metering under state rules, and each meters and credits a little differently, which is one reason we design around your actual bill and your actual utility rather than a regional average.
The value of a net metering credit tracks the retail rate you would otherwise pay, so as Massachusetts supply and delivery charges climb, the credits your roof earns are worth more, not less. That is the quiet part of the math: net metering does not just offset today’s bill, it hedges you against every rate increase the utility files for the next 25 years.
There is a cap on how much net metering capacity each utility must accept, and program rules have shifted over the years. We confirm that your system qualifies and how your specific utility will credit it before we put a production estimate in front of you.
The Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target, known as SMART, is what sets Massachusetts apart from most states. On top of the bill savings from net metering, SMART pays enrolled systems a per-kilowatt-hour incentive for the energy they generate, for a fixed term that locks in the day you enroll. It is a production payment, not a one-time rebate, and it runs for years.
SMART 3.0 replaced the old declining blocks. Home systems of 25 kilowatts or less now earn a flat rate for every kilowatt hour they produce, set by the state each program year: $0.03 per kilowatt hour in 2026, or $0.06 for qualifying low-income households. The payments run for 20 years. Earlier versions of SMART used blocks that stepped down as they filled, so the rate a neighbor got a few years ago is not the rate available today.
That is why a straight answer matters here. Anyone who quotes you a SMART figure without checking the current program year rate is guessing. We confirm the current rate for your utility, apply it to your system’s estimated production, and put the resulting number in your written proposal so you are enrolling against a real rate, not a sales pitch.
For a home system, a battery does not raise your SMART rate. Under SMART 3.0 the storage adder is limited to systems larger than 25 kilowatts, so a typical residential array is not eligible. Where a Massachusetts battery earns money is ConnectedSolutions, the Mass Save program that pays $275 per kilowatt for a battery’s average contribution during summer peak events, for customers of Eversource, National Grid and Cape Light Compact.
ConnectedSolutions calls on your battery no more than 60 times a summer, for up to three hours at a time, between 3 and 8 p.m. on non-holidays from June 1 to September 30. The payment scales with how much power your battery actually delivers during those events, so a properly matched battery is rewarded rather than an oversized one bolted on for show.
For a Massachusetts homeowner that means a battery can do three jobs at once: keep your essential circuits running when Eversource or National Grid goes down, store your own cheap daytime solar for use at night, and earn ConnectedSolutions payments every summer. We model the battery you are actually considering so you can see whether it pays for itself or is better added later. We will tell you honestly which one your home is.
Beyond the programs that pay you, Massachusetts has two structural benefits that quietly protect the money you put into a system. First, solar equipment is exempt from the state’s 6.25 percent sales tax, so the hardware costs less at purchase than a taxable improvement of the same price would.
Second, and bigger over time, Massachusetts exempts residential solar from property tax assessment for 20 years. Solar reliably raises a home’s value, but this exemption means that added value does not raise your property tax bill for two decades. You capture the resale upside without paying more to the town every year for it.
Both are effectively automatic in practice and neither depends on an annual capacity cap the way SMART does. They are the steady, boring part of the Massachusetts picture, and boring is exactly what you want from a benefit you are counting on for 20 years.
How you pay changes who captures the SMART payments and the net metering credits, so it is worth understanding before you sign anything. Rooftop Power offers four paths, and three of them start with no money out of pocket. We walk through all four with your real numbers, never just the one that pays us most.
A solar loan lets you own the system and everything it earns, including the SMART production payments and net metering credits, while spreading the cost over time. Paying cash owns it outright for the strongest long-term position. A power purchase agreement, or PPA, means you pay only for the power the panels produce at a set rate per kilowatt hour. A lease is a fixed monthly payment for the equipment itself.
The right answer depends on whether you want ownership and the program income that comes with it, or the simplicity of a predictable monthly payment with someone else handling the paperwork. We show all four side by side, in writing, with the Massachusetts programs already factored in, so you are choosing with open eyes rather than reacting to a monthly number in isolation.
Honesty means naming what ended, not just what pays. The 30 percent federal tax credit ended for systems placed in service after 2025, so any Massachusetts proposal that still leans on it as a current benefit is selling you the past. Be careful with any company that leads with it in 2026.
The old Mass Solar Loan program also closed to new applications years ago, and it still shows up on stale incentive lists all over the internet. A proposal built on a program that no longer accepts applicants is not a proposal, it is a trap, and it usually means the salesperson has not checked their own numbers in a long while.
Here is the reassuring part: the Massachusetts math never depended on the federal credit to work. What remains is genuinely strong on its own. You have some of the highest utility rates in the country to escape, net metering that grows more valuable as those rates climb, SMART production payments, ConnectedSolutions payments for batteries, and two long tax exemptions. That is the real 2026 case, and it is the only one we will show you.
Massachusetts incentives rarely stand alone. The homeowners who get the most out of SMART usually pair the right hardware with the right financing, and they start from the full case for going solar in the first place. Here is where to go next.
The piece that earns ConnectedSolutions payments and keeps your essentials running through outages.
Learn MoreLoan, cash, PPA and lease, three with nothing down, mapped against your Massachusetts numbers.
Learn MoreThe full honest case for New England homeowners, from rising rates to today’s technology.
Learn MoreNet metering, SMART, ConnectedSolutions and the two tax exemptions covered above are the core of the Massachusetts math, but they are not the only things touching your return. Massachusetts also offers a state income tax credit for renewable energy source property, separate from anything federal, and it is worth raising with a tax professional as part of your decision, since eligibility and the exact treatment depend on your personal tax situation, not your installer.
Some towns and utilities layer additional programs on top of the statewide ones, and municipal light plants outside the investor owned utility territories sometimes run their own incentive structures rather than SMART. None of this changes the honest baseline: confirm what actually applies to your address and your utility before you treat any number as real. A proposal that lumps every program you might qualify for into one total, without naming which utility or program each piece comes from, is harder to verify than one that lines them up individually.
Every program described on this page changes over time, so the number that mattered for a neighbor’s system two years ago is not a promise for yours today. Before you sign anything, ask your installer to show you where the current SMART rate for your utility comes from, whether the Department of Energy Resources has published anything more recent, and whether your address’s net metering cap is currently open. These are checkable facts, not sales talk, and any installer working these programs every week should be able to point to the source rather than recite a number from memory.
It also helps to ask what happens if a program’s terms shift between your signed contract and your interconnection approval. Programs like SMART typically qualify a system based on when it enrolls, but the honest answer depends on the specific program and your timeline, so get it in writing rather than assuming. A company that welcomes the question is treating you like a partner. One that waves it off is asking you to trust a number it has not verified itself.
Current SMART rate, net metering math and full pricing for your home, in writing, free. Call 401-298-8040.