So you want rooftop solar, eh? And why not? It can provide electricity to your home and family basically for free, once the upfront costs of the equipment are amortized. It can insulate you from paying higher utility bills when data centers or wars disrupt the status quo. The idea of rooftop solar is appealing, especially for those who own electric cars. But getting it can break your heart. Not because the equipment is unreliable or the installer incompetent. No, those things are pretty much in the past. What can throw a monkey wrench into your plans is the permitting process, and even if you manage to clear that hurdle, your local utility can throw you a curve ball late in the game that undermines the whole project. Doing Your Due Diligence In Massachusetts, Abe Walters is someone who really, really wants to be all in on rooftop solar. He owns two electric vehicles and has just installed a heat pump to heat and cool his home. He had a small rooftop solar system but wanted to upgrade it and add battery storage to his home. He figured the system would cut his utility bill in half over the next 20 years — no small thing in a state with some of the highest utility rates in the nation. Easy peasy, right? Nope. Walters told the Commonwealth Beacon the ordeal was like a full-time job. He got estimates from several different energy installers and sifted through shifting tax credits to make it all pencil out, so that he could finally escape the volatility of natural gas prices. The system he wanted would cost about $100,000, so he applied for a loan from the Massachusetts Community Climate Bank. That process took about eight months before final approval was obtained. Walters assumed it would all be downhill from there. Last month, the installer was ready to proceed, and the funds to pay for the system were in hand. What could possibly go wrong? Like Russian Roulette But when he applied to National Grid to connect his new system so he could sell excess electricity back to the grid, the utility company told him they needed to upgrade the transformer that serviced his house at a cost of $12,000. Since the fee was not figured in to the loan amount, Walters would have to pay for the upgrade out of his own pocket. “I almost want to cry because this is the right thing to do,” said Walters, “When I found out about the loan, I was like, ‘I cannot afford not to do this.’ The economics are just compelling. It’s the right thing to do, in my pocketbook and in my heart and in my head.” Walters’s case exemplifies the last-mile barriers that can get in the way of solar and storage projects hooking up to the electrical grid. In Massachusetts, as in most states, utilities are allowed to charge the customer the full cost of any necessary upgrades, even if the upgraded piece of infrastructure serves multiple homes and businesses as many transformers do. The system becomes a game of chance based on when you happen to get in line: If one neighbor adds solar and eats into the available capacity but doesn’t trigger the upgrade, the next home to add solar may push the transformer past its limit and get penalized just for going second. Once that homeowner pays for the upgrade, the third homeowner that adds solar will reap the benefits of the new transformer’s expanded capacity without paying for the costs. “It’s like Russian roulette,” Ben Underwood of Resonant Energy in Boston told the Commonwealth Beacon. He also serves on a panel set up by the Department of Public Utilities to evaluate this issue. The issue could pit neighbor against neighbor, he said. “I don’t want to get into a neighbor war. I’m not expecting a free ride. I just want it to be equitable.” A Proposed Solution When a cost as high as nearly $12,000 gets dropped on a customer like Walters so late in the process, it can significantly alter the math for a project, add yet another complication to navigate, and make it prohibitive for the average homeowner. It is counter intuitive when official state policy wants to encourage residents to electrify heating systems, buy electric vehicles, and pursue clean energy sources like solar. “This is not just a person here or there,” said Nathan Phelps, managing director for the regulatory hub at the nonprofit advocacy group Vote Solar and a former senior economist at the DPU. “This is becoming a pervasive issue.” The problem isn’t new and isn’t unique to Massachusetts, where a working group that includes utility representatives, members of the solar industry, and state officials filed a proposal late last month with the DPU to overhaul the way these interconnection costs are spread out. The Interconnection Implementation Review Group is calling for customers of National Grid, Unitil, and Eversource who want to install residential solar projects to pay a $225 fee to cover up to $10,000 of necessary grid improvements per project. Connecticut, Maine, and Minnesota have recently adopted similar programs to avoid the last minute addition of upgrade costs being borne by individual customers seeking solar interconnection. National Grid said that between January 2024 and September 2025, 649 out of 703 applications required grid improvements that cost $10,000 or less. If such a program was in effect in Massachusetts, Walters would only have to pay any amount over $10,000. “This structure covers the large majority of projects and minimizes the ‘last’ customer from bearing costly upgrades alone,” National Grid wrote in a filing with the DPU. Michael Judge, the undersecretary f0r energy in Massachusetts, wrote an email to Walters late last month that said “it is very likely that the DPU will approve the proposal as filed or with minor modifications.” The regulators are “motivated to act quickly on this,” he added, though he cautioned that he is not sure how long that will take or how it will impact projects already underway. A Sense Of Urgency There is a sense of urgency in Massachusetts and it is only getting stronger as disruptions associated with US adventurism in Iran are impacting the price of methane needed to power thermal generating stations. Massachusetts residents are paying some of the highest electricity prices in the nation, according to new data from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and energy affordability is now the top household concern in the state, one recent survey found. “Residential solar is not at a standstill in terms of interconnection,” said Kate Tohme, co-chair of the IIRG and director of interconnection policy at the Massachusetts-based renewable energy developer New Leaf Energy. “But this has clearly become a significant issue that needs to be addressed. I don’t think there’s anyone in the Commonwealth right now that’s opposed to establishment of an alternative cost allocation for residential homeowners.” One solution is to simply go off grid entirely — something more people are doing and which should scare the bejezus out of utility companies. We don’t know the specifics of Abe Walters’ system, but for $100,000, it should be large enough to meet all his electrical needs and then some. The idea of selling electrons back to the grid was hot when rooftop solar first became a thing, but many people today feel it is best to avoid the hassle and just fend for themselves.
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