Startup offers low-cost home batteries to Massachusetts residents

Haven Energy is the newest company offering home battery service in Massachusetts for a low monthly payment, a model supporters say could accelerate adoption of residential storage.

Starting in four counties in the southeastern part of the state, the company will provide customers with a 15-kilowatt-hour home battery, installed and ready to go, starting at $29 a month, with a 10-year contract. These terms make obtaining a battery significantly more affordable in a market where a home system can easily top $15,000.

“Think of Haven as a low-cost battery backup subscription,” said co-founder and CEO Vinnie Campo.

Haven joins Tesla, which last month launched its own lower-cost monthly payment offering in both Massachusetts and Connecticut, a discounted version of its existing battery-leasing program. The Tesla option saves Massachusetts customers about $30 a month, which could shave nearly a third off the price of a standard monthly lease.

How does the pricing model work? Massachusetts utilities operate a demand-response program called ConnectedSolutions, which pays battery owners to discharge energy to the grid during times of peak demand, like those hot summer days when everyone turns on their air conditioners at once. With lots of batteries working in concert, these actions can reduce the need for the utilities to buy pricey, dirty electricity from peaker power plants. In the long term, the strategy can help delay costly grid upgrades paid for by consumers.

A typical battery could earn $1,375 per year participating in ConnectedSolutions. A new expansion of the program, ConnectedSolutions+, pays even more to battery owners in certain geographical areas where the grid is particularly congested, making the availability of local stored power even more valuable.

Haven and Tesla both retain ownership of the batteries in their programs, and thus earn these and any other available incentives. This revenue stream allows the companies to keep the monthly price low for customers. The model has the added advantage of making it easier for homeowners to get started with battery storage, eliminating the complication of sorting out and applying for incentives, Campo said.

“We take a complicated stack of rebates and incentives, and dramatically simplify that so it’s an easy-to-understand product,” he said.

Customers with solar panels will be able to save even more by charging up their batteries during sunny but low-demand times of day to use in the darker hours, rather than drawing from the grid.

When ConnectedSolutions calls on participating batteries — generally 30 to 60 times a year, always in the summer — Haven will leave at least 20% of the stored power available for its customers. If a major storm that could trigger an outage seems likely, the company puts its batteries in ​“safety mode,” preventing them from discharging to the grid.

“We are always prioritizing backup power for the customer,” Campo said.

The monthly payment model is not a completely new approach to driving battery adoption. Haven debuted in 2023, in California (a state that also has a robust incentive program for residential batteries), and evolved its business model in 2025 when the One Big Beautiful Bill Act changed the way the federal tax credits work. Vermont’s major utility, Green Mountain Power, has offered leases on two-battery systems for $55 a month since 2017. Today, some 4,600 households are enrolled, and the program continues to grow.

Battery boosters hope the trend continues. As of earlier this year, 26 states and Puerto Rico had programs paying residential battery owners to share their power with the grid, and more will join the list soon, said Todd Olinsky-Paul, senior project director for the nonprofit Clean Energy Group. These initiatives could pave the way for more monthly payment models that will make getting a battery as easy as signing up for any other home service.

“It’s like subscribing to cable or garbage pickup,” Olinsky-Paul said. ​“I think it’s going to be quite popular.”