Solar by state
Solar in Massachusetts, by the numbers
Utilities and their rates, adoption, ten years of growth, batteries, ownership, state rules and installer licensing in Massachusetts, from federal 2024 data.
Massachusetts in brief
6.48% of Massachusetts homes had rooftop solar in 2024, the 8th-highest of 51 (3.55% nationally). Power cost 29.35¢/kWh, above the national 16.48¢, and the average system was 6.88 kW. NSTAR Electric Company serves 46.1% of homes.
Where does Massachusetts stand out?
The four measures, beyond price and adoption, on which Massachusetts sits furthest from the middle of the ranking.
Massachusetts solar in numbers, 2024
Every Massachusetts figure next to the national one, with its place in the ranking (highest first, out of the jurisdictions reporting it).
| Measure | Massachusetts | United States | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homes with a metered rooftop system | 6.48% | 3.55% | 8th-highest of 51 |
| Rooftop systems counted | 189,611 | 5,077,543 | 6th-highest of 51 |
| Average system size | 6.88 kW | 6.74 kW | 15th-lowest of 51 |
| Residential price | 29.35¢/kWh | 16.48¢/kWh | 3rd-highest of 51 |
| Average monthly bill | $167.20 | $142.26 | 4th-highest of 51 |
| Use per home | 6,836 kWh/yr | 10,359 kWh/yr | 5th-lowest of 51 |
| Systems with a battery | 1.33% | 5.86% | 21st-lowest of 47 |
| Leased or on a PPA | 57.2% | 29.1% | highest of 38 |
| Growth in systems, five years | 14.8% a year | — | 10th-lowest of 51 |
| Minutes without power per customer | 104 | 297 (median state) | 5th-lowest of 51 |
| Homes on a time-varying rate | 0.19% | 11.1% | 7th-lowest of 51 |
| Installed rooftop capacity | 1,304.6 MW | 34,226 MW | — |
Source: US EIA, Form EIA-861, 2024 final release, retrieved 2 September 2026. The Massachusetts ratios and ranks are HyreSolar calculations from EIA inputs.
Which utility serves Massachusetts, and what does it charge?
The 8 largest utilities selling to Massachusetts homes, by residential customers, with the price full-service customers paid and how many run net-metered solar.
| Utility | Type | Homes served | Price per kWh | Use per home, monthly | Net-metered systems |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NSTAR Electric Company | Investor-owned; wires, 29% on its own supply | 1,303,076 (46.1%) | 29.91¢ | 504 kWh | 80,111 (6.2%) |
| Massachusetts Electric Company | Investor-owned; wires, 44% on its own supply | 1,210,113 (42.8%) | 33.60¢ | 547 kWh | 104,158 (8.6%) |
| City of Taunton | Municipal | 35,684 (1.3%) | 21.46¢ | 622 kWh | 461 (1.3%) |
| Town of Reading | Municipal | 27,405 (0.97%) | 15.86¢ | 789 kWh | 311 (1.1%) |
| Fitchburg Gas & Electric Light Company | Investor-owned; wires, 24% on its own supply | 26,290 (0.93%) | 40.08¢ | 520 kWh | 3,445 (13.1%) |
| City of Chicopee | Municipal | 23,218 (0.82%) | 16.16¢ | 699 kWh | 47 (0.20%) |
| City of Peabody | Municipal | 22,546 (0.80%) | 15.71¢ | 715 kWh | 42 (0.19%) |
| City of Westfield | Municipal | 16,200 (0.57%) | 17.59¢ | 669 kWh | None reported |
Source: US EIA, Form EIA-861 2024, Sales to Ultimate Customers and Net Metering, utility level, retrieved 5 October 2026. Shares are of 2,825,052 Massachusetts residential accounts. Each Massachusetts price is residential revenue divided by sales for full-service customers (HyreSolar calculation); a wires company’s price is its default-service price.
What do the Massachusetts utility figures mean for a solar quote?
EIA-861 lists 20 utilities serving homes in Massachusetts in 2024, across 2,825,052 residential accounts. The three largest, NSTAR Electric Company, Massachusetts Electric Company and City of Taunton, served 90.2% of those homes. By ownership: investor-owned utilities 90.3% and municipal utilities 9.2%.
1,634,269 Massachusetts homes (57.8%) bought their energy from 37 competitive suppliers, while the local utility kept delivering it. On a supplier, the energy price on your bill is the supplier’s, so price a solar quote against your own bill rather than the utility prices in the table.
NSTAR Electric Company, the largest, served 1,303,076 Massachusetts homes (46.1%). Its full-service residential customers paid 29.91¢ per kWh, above the Massachusetts average of 29.35¢, and used 504 kWh a month on average. 80,111 of its customers ran net-metered rooftop solar, 6.2% of its homes against 6.48% statewide.
Among the 20 Massachusetts utilities with at least 5,000 residential customers and a full-service price, the price ran from 13.39¢ at Town of Hudson to 40.08¢ at Fitchburg Gas & Electric Light Company.
At the Massachusetts average of 6,836 kWh a year, that 26.69¢ gap is worth about $1,825 a year (our arithmetic), so the same system offsets more money in one territory than the other.
Price a quote on your own utility’s rate, not the 29.35¢ Massachusetts average.
Rooftop solar is concentrated: Massachusetts Electric Company alone accounts for 104,158 net-metered residential systems, about 55% of the 189,611 counted in Massachusetts, and 17 Massachusetts utilities reported any at all. The highest adoption among the larger utilities was at Fitchburg Gas & Electric Light Company, where 13.1% of homes had a system.
What does power cost in Massachusetts, and why does it matter?
Residential electricity in Massachusetts averaged 29.35¢ per kilowatt-hour in 2024, the 3rd-highest of 51 and above the national 16.48¢. That is one of the highest residential prices in the country.
Each kilowatt-hour a system covers on site is one not bought at that price, so self-consumption carries more value in Massachusetts than in all but a handful of states.
The average Massachusetts household bill was $167.20 a month ($2,006 a year), the 4th-highest of 51, against $142.26 nationally. That $2,006 is the ceiling on what solar could save a typical Massachusetts home, before fixed monthly charges.
Only 0.19% of Massachusetts homes were on a time-varying rate in 2024 (11.1% nationally), so a flat rate is the likely starting point. 10.4% of Massachusetts residential meters were smart meters (83.8% nationally), and a time-varying rate needs one. How time-of-use changes solar.
How many Massachusetts homes have solar?
Massachusetts had 189,611 rooftop systems on net metering in 2024, across 2,924,535 residential accounts: 6.48% of homes, the 8th-highest of 51. By national standards Massachusetts is a mature market, which can mean several installers to compare and a permit office that has handled solar before.
The Massachusetts market counted 30,323 more systems in 2024 than in 2023 and has grown 14.8% a year over five years, the 10th-lowest of 51. Where growth has turned nationally.
How has Massachusetts solar changed since 2014?
Massachusetts counted 19,246 net-metered rooftop systems in 2014 and 189,611 in 2024, 9.9 times as many. The share of homes with one moved from 0.71% to 6.48%. The biggest one-year addition came in 2024, with 30,323 more systems than the year before.
| Year | Rooftop systems | Share of homes | Average size | Residential price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 19,246 | 0.71% | 6.2 kW | 17.39¢ |
| 2016 | 61,553 | 2.25% | 6.5 kW | 19.00¢ |
| 2018 | 83,427 | 3.00% | 6.7 kW | 21.61¢ |
| 2020 | 105,587 | 3.75% | 6.8 kW | 21.97¢ |
| 2022 | 143,566 | 4.97% | 7.3 kW | 25.97¢ |
| 2024 | 189,611 | 6.48% | 6.9 kW | 29.35¢ |
Source: US EIA, Form EIA-861 annual files 2014–2024, net-metered residential systems, retrieved 2 September 2026. Massachusetts shares and sizes are HyreSolar calculations.
What does the Massachusetts trend mean for a savings estimate?
Over the same years the Massachusetts residential price went from 17.39¢ to 29.35¢ per kWh, up 69%, and the average system from 6.2 kW to 6.9 kW. A rate that has risen that far makes a 2024 bill a conservative base for a Massachusetts savings estimate only if the trend continues, which nobody can promise.
How big is a typical Massachusetts system?
The average Massachusetts system was 6.88 kW in 2024, the 15th-lowest of 51, against 6.74 kW nationally. Massachusetts homes used 6,836 kilowatt-hours a year each, the 5th-lowest of 51.
A Massachusetts home using 6,836 kWh is an average, not a design input: size from your own twelve months of bills and usable roof with cost by system size and the system size calculator.
Who owns the systems in Massachusetts?
In Massachusetts, 57.2% of systems were third-party owned in 2024: leased, or on a power purchase agreement (PPA), rather than owned by the household. That is the highest of 38, against 29.1% nationally.
Third-party ownership is the common way solar is sold in Massachusetts. Expect a lease or power purchase agreement to be offered, and check who will own the equipment before you sign. Whoever owns a Massachusetts system claims any tax credit on it: Section 48E explained.
Do Massachusetts homes add batteries?
In Massachusetts, 1.33% of solar systems were paired with a battery in 2024 (2,528 systems), the 21st-lowest of 47. Massachusetts’s share is well under half the national 5.86%.
On reliability, the average Massachusetts customer went 104 minutes without power in 2024 counting major storms, and 77 minutes without them. The median state saw 297. Outages in every state.
Whether a battery pays in Massachusetts turns on your utility’s export credit and your own outage history: what a home battery does.
How do you check a solar company’s license in Massachusetts?
We checked 55 Massachusetts solar companies from June to August 2026 against the home improvement contractor registration and the electrical business license. 18.2% of those did not hold a current license when checked (10 expired).
Ask which license a company holds, then confirm the number with the issuing authority yourself.
These counts describe the companies we checked on those dates, not every company in Massachusetts, and a license current then may have lapsed since. How to verify a solar license.
Which states are closest to Massachusetts on adoption?
The six jurisdictions nearest to Massachusetts’s 6.48% share of homes with rooftop solar.
Where do the Massachusetts numbers come from?
The Massachusetts figures are HyreSolar calculations from the Form EIA-861 annual files: 189,611 net-metered residential systems counted against 2,924,535 residential accounts, sizes as means, and 20 utility-level rows for the utility table, matched to net-metering records by EIA utility number.
The method and limits cover all 51; the Massachusetts row is in the data as a CSV.
No Massachusetts figure here is an estimate for one home: your roof, usage, utility tariff and tax position decide that.
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Questions
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