On September 18, 2026, the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) announced $40.3 million in grants under its Advancing Massachusetts Power (AMP) Energy Storage Grant Program. The money goes to 36 projects. These are awards, not finished installations, and most sites still have to build their systems.
The awards at a glance
| Category | Projects | Approx. funding | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Community resilience | 28 | $32.4 million | On-site batteries for outages and lower energy costs |
| Safety and education | 6 | $2.5 million | Training for first responders, officials, and electricians |
| Long duration storage | 2 | $5.4 million | Systems that store power for 10 to 20 hours |
Source: Massachusetts DOER announcement, September 18, 2026. Status: awarded; build and switch-on dates not announced.
Who gets batteries
Community resilience is the big category. The batteries are meant to keep a building running during an outage and to cut energy costs. Together the 28 projects add about 10 megawatts and 44 megawatt-hours of storage, according to DOER. The sites include 10 affordable or public housing developments, 8 schools, 4 community centers, 2 public works departments, 2 wastewater treatment plants, 1 county jail, and 1 nonprofit office. Named examples include Lafayette Place public housing in Worcester, Heritage Apartments in Boston, Falmouth High School, Hopkinton High School, Cape Cod Technical High School, Lowell Regional Water Utilities, and Springfield Water and Sewer.
The two long duration projects are a 4 MW, 80 MWh sodium-iron chloride battery at Berkshire East Mountain Resort in Charlemont and a 0.24 MW, 2.4 MWh zinc battery at Mystic Place Apartments in Medford. The six training awards cover battery safety, fire codes, permitting, and inspections, a gap that matters as more batteries go into dense neighborhoods.
DOER’s commissioner, Elizabeth Mahony, said the vast majority of the funding is headed to environmental justice communities. Secretary Rebecca Tepper also said batteries supplied more electricity to the grid in the first eight months of 2026 than in all of 2025.
Why It Matters to You
- If you live in public or affordable housing, or use a school, community center or water utility on the list, a battery could keep the building running during an outage.
- The batteries are also meant to cut energy costs for those sites.
- Nothing is installed yet. The announcement doesn’t say when each site will be built or switched on.
- Firefighters, officials and electricians are getting training on battery safety, fire codes, permitting and inspections, which helps wherever batteries go in.
What the announcement doesn’t say
These are grant awards, with no build or switch-on dates. Backup time depends on size and load. A typical school award is 250 kW and 1,728 kWh, which is under seven hours at full rated power, and a building that uses less power than that lasts longer. No multi-day guarantee is stated for these sites. The release doesn’t state a funding source for the $40.3 million, and it doesn’t quantify avoided outage costs, food spoilage, or school closures, so there’s no savings estimate for any specific building. The 10 MW and 44 MWh totals cover only the 28 resilience projects, not the long duration awards.
Quick answers
Are these batteries already running? The announcement describes awards. It doesn’t say which systems are built or when they will be. Check with each host site or DOER for status.
Who gets the money? Schools, public and affordable housing, community centers, public works and water utilities, a county jail, a nonprofit office, and two long duration storage hosts. Training groups received the safety awards.
Will the batteries replace diesel generators? The release says the batteries keep sites running during outages and reduce energy costs. It doesn’t say which sites will retire generators, so that isn’t confirmed.
What is long duration storage? In this program it means systems that discharge for 10 to 20 hours, compared with the shorter runtimes of most lithium-ion systems.
Sources
- Mass.gov: Healey-Driscoll Administration awards more than $40 million to power critical facilities during outages (Sep 18, 2026)