Why ~40 Massachusetts Towns Don't Get Mass Save Rebates

If you've started shopping for a heat pump in Massachusetts, you've probably heard about Mass Save's whole-home heat pump rebate — up to $10,000 back. If you live in Belmont, Concord, Wellesley, Reading, Holyoke, Westfield, Taunton, Hingham, Norwood, Mansfield, Peabody, or one of about 30 other Massachusetts towns, that rebate doesn't apply to you. This article explains why, and what you do get instead.

Mass Save is funded by the investor-owned utilities

Mass Save is a joint efficiency program paid for by the investor-owned utilities — Eversource, National Grid, and Unitil for electric service, plus the gas utilities. Funding comes from a small line item on your monthly bill, and the program is administered by the utilities themselves under oversight from the state Department of Public Utilities.

If you don't get your electricity from one of those investor-owned utilities, you don't pay into Mass Save — and you can't draw rebates from it.

~40 towns get their electricity from a Municipal Light Plant instead

Massachusetts has a long history of municipally-owned electric utilities, dating back to the early 1900s when many towns voted to set up their own power departments. Today about 40 communities still operate Municipal Light Plants (MLPs) that distribute electricity within the town's borders. The better-known examples:

• Greater Boston suburbs: Belmont, Braintree, Concord, Hingham, Norwood, Peabody, Reading, Wakefield, Wellesley
• Central and western MA: Chicopee, Holyoke, Shrewsbury, South Hadley, Templeton, Westfield
• South Shore and SE MA: Mansfield, Middleborough, Taunton, Hull
• North Shore: Danvers, Georgetown, Groveland, Ipswich, Marblehead, Middleton, Rowley
• Worcester area: Boylston, Holden, Paxton, Princeton, Sterling, West Boylston, Hudson, Stow, Littleton, Boxborough

If you live in any of these, your electric bill goes to the town utility, not to Eversource or National Grid. That's generally a feature — MLP rates are often lower and reliability is often higher — but it does mean Mass Save is closed to you.

What MLP towns offer instead

Most MLPs run their own efficiency programs that broadly parallel Mass Save, just with smaller rebate amounts:

• Heat pump rebates in the $500–$3,000 range in most MLP towns, versus Mass Save's $10,000 ceiling. Specific amounts depend on equipment size and the town's annual budget.
• Heat pump water heater rebates, similar range.
• Weatherization and air-sealing subsidies that mirror Mass Save's approach but at different participation levels.
• HEAT Loan equivalents in some towns through partnerships with credit unions.

Each MLP publishes its current incentive schedule on its own website — look for "Belmont Light," "Concord Municipal Light Plant," "Wellesley Municipal Light Plant," and so on. The schedules typically refresh in January and the amounts vary by year.

The federal IRA stack still applies

One important point: the federal Inflation Reduction Act incentives apply regardless of which utility you're served by. That includes:

• The 25C tax credit of up to $2,000 for a qualifying heat pump install
• The 30% credit on related electrical work like panel upgrades
• The High-Efficiency Electric Home Rebate (HEEHRA) for income-eligible households (up to $8,000 on the heat pump itself)

For many MLP-town homeowners these federal incentives end up being the bulk of the available rebate stack, since the MLP program is usually thinner than Mass Save.

What this means when you're getting quotes

If you're in an MLP town, watch for two things in HVAC quotes:

1. A contractor claiming you'll get "the full $10K rebate" — that's the Mass Save figure, and it doesn't apply to you. A contractor making this mistake is probably unfamiliar with MLP rules; ask them to re-quote with your actual utility's program.
2. A contractor unfamiliar with your specific MLP's process — each MLP handles applications a little differently. The contractors that work regularly in MLP towns know the schedule and timing; that's a good sanity check on whether you've found the right installer for your area.

Why it works this way (briefly)

The "Mass Save funded by investor-owned utilities" structure is a deliberate policy choice — the state DPU didn't want to force MLP towns to join a state-administered program when they'd voted decades ago to run their own electricity. The trade-off is that MLP customers get lower rates and local control, but smaller efficiency rebates. Whether that trade-off works out for any given homeowner depends mostly on whether you're doing a big electrification project (Mass Save wins) or just paying your monthly bill (MLP often wins).