Massachusetts Splits $40 Million Across 36 Storage Projects, With 28 of Them Adding 10.26 MW of Community Backup

The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources awarded more than $40 million to 36 projects on September 22, 2026. The grants come from its Advancing Massachusetts Power Energy Storage Grant Program. They split across three separate categories: Community Resilience, Safety and Education, and Long Duration Energy Storage. The largest single award, $2,500,000, goes to a 2,500 kW/10,030 kWh battery at the Springfield Water and Sewer wastewater treatment plant.

The Community Resilience category carries 28 of the 36 awards. The state’s own project table lists each one with a size and a dollar figure. Summing that table gives 10.26 MW and 44.14 MWh of battery capacity for $32,380,532. The state describes the same set as “roughly 10 megawatts, or 44 megawatt hours,” so the published total and the line items agree.

Where the Money Went

The recipients are ordinary municipal buildings, not merchant projects. Barnstable County Jail takes $2,166,976 for 1,000 kW/3,456 kWh. Braintree Department of Public Works takes $2,500,000 for 1,250 kW/4,500 kWh. Lowell Regional Water Utilities takes $2,500,000 for 469 kW/4,514 kWh. The Mattahunt Elementary School and Community Center in Boston takes $2,490,300 for 1,043 kW/2,087 kWh. At the other end, the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts gets $71,800 for a 23 kW/80 kWh system.

Ten of the 28 are affordable or public housing sites. Seven more are schools, and an eighth is a combined school and community center. Energy Resources Commissioner Elizabeth Mahony said the “vast majority of this funding is headed to environmental justice communities, which typically are burdened by longer power outages, an aging grid, and higher energy bills.”

Why It Matters

Grant-funded resilience storage at this size rarely pencils on energy arbitrage alone. Cape Cod Technical High School draws $1,319,632 for 250 kW/1,728 kWh. That is far more per kilowatt-hour than a utility-scale system costs. The state is buying outage ride-through for buildings that shelter people. It pays a premium to put the asset behind the meter at the site that needs it. Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper framed the timing against a market shift, saying batteries “supplied more electricity to the grid in the first eight months of 2026 than in all of 2025.”

The Number the Coverage Got Wrong

The 10 MW/44 MWh figure describes the Community Resilience category only. It does not describe the program. Energy-Storage.News reported the same 10 MW/44 MWh as the total across all 36 projects. The same article then listed a Long Duration Energy Storage award to Berkshire East Mountain Resort in Charlemont at 4 MW/80 MWh for $4,510,000. That single project alone carries nearly twice the energy capacity of the 44 MWh it was folded into. Microgrid Knowledge put the program at “more than 13 MW,” a third number again. Secretary Tepper’s statement points to two long-duration systems, zinc-based and sodium-based, sitting outside the community total. Anyone sizing the Massachusetts behind-the-meter market off the 44 MWh headline is working from a category subtotal.

Critical Perspective

Divide the Community Resilience awards by what they buy and the spread is hard to ignore. The $32,380,532 across that category works out to about $734 per kWh of state money, and roughly $3,155 per kW. Cape Cod Technical High School sits at about $764 per kWh. The Springfield Water and Sewer plant, the largest system in the category, comes in near $249 per kWh. The Berkshire East long-duration award is about $56 per kWh.

That is a 13-fold range in state dollars per kWh inside one program. Some of it is real: small systems carry fixed engineering and interconnection costs that do not shrink with the battery, and the grant is a contribution rather than the full project cost. But the state has not published a cost-effectiveness screen alongside the awards, so there is no stated basis for choosing a 23 kW nonprofit system over more capacity at a wastewater plant.

The resilience case does not rest on those ratios, and the program is explicit that it is buying outage ride-through for environmental justice communities. That is a defensible reason to pay a premium. It is still worth asking what the state thinks an avoided outage hour is worth, because 28 separate procurements at this spread imply an answer nobody has written down.

Sources

• Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, September 22, 2026
• Microgrid Knowledge, September 22, 2026
• Energy-Storage.News, September 22, 2026

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