NSTAR Electric Company
NSTAR Electric Company is an investor-owned utility, regulated by the state commission, serving 1,303,076 residential accounts in Massachusetts. Everything below comes from its own 2024 filing with the US Energy Information Administration — the numbers the company reported about itself.
- Average residential rate
- $0.299/kWh
- Homes with solar
- 80,111
- Rooftop capacity
- 580 MW
2024 annual average
6.1% of residential accounts
residential, net-metered
What households here pay
Residential customers on NSTAR Electric Company's own supply paid an average of $0.299 per kWh across 2024 — total residential revenue divided by total residential kilowatt-hours sold, so it includes the fixed monthly charge, riders and fuel adjustments, not just the headline energy rate. It is the number your own bill would produce if you divided the annual total by the kWh.
Massachusetts's statewide average was $0.296/kWh in June 2026 on EIA's monthly series. This utility sits close to the state average. The two figures are measured differently and are two years apart, so read the gap as direction, not as a precise difference.
That made it the 3rd most expensive of the 5 Massachusetts utilities on this site in 2024.
What it did between 2020 and 2024
NSTAR Electric Company's all-in residential rate went from $0.224 in 2020 to $0.299 in 2024 — a rise of 33.6%. Each year is that year's own Form 861 filing, worked out the same way as the figure above.
Across the 505 utilities on this site the middle one moved up 15.7% over the same years, so NSTAR Electric Company rose faster than most. Rates rose almost everywhere in this window; the comparison is what says whether a number is unusual.
Residential revenue over residential sales, bundled service only, from each year's EIA Form 861.
Two bills in one
919,703 of these households — 71% — buy their electricity from a competitive supplier and pay NSTAR Electric Company only to deliver it. The average above covers the 383,373 still on the utility's own supply. If you shop for supply, your rate is set by your contract, and solar savings track your rate, not this one.How many neighbours already did it
80,111 homes on this system had a net-metered solar array at the end of 2024 — 61.5 per thousand residential accounts, or 6.1% of them. That is about 5.1× the median US utility on this site, so solar here is common rather than unusual.
That ranks 3 of 5 Massachusetts utilities reporting net-metered solar.
2,370 of those systems — 3% — also report a paired battery. Battery attach rates rise where exports earn less than retail, because storing a kilowatt-hour and using it later is worth more than selling it. Exports here still earn full retail, so the incentive to store is weaker.
The rule that decides this, and it changed
The 30% federal residential credit (§25D) expired for systems placed in service after 31 December 2025. Every payback figure written before 2026 — including anything quoted at you by an installer working from an old spreadsheet — is overstated by roughly a third for a purchase. Leases and PPAs still reach §48E until the end of 2027, which is why the ownership question now decides more than the hardware does.Other Massachusetts utilities
| Utility | Accounts | Avg rate | Solar per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Massachusetts Electric Co | 1,210,113 | $0.336 | 86.1 |
| City of Taunton | 35,684 | $0.215 | 12.9 |
| Town of Reading - (MA) | 27,405 | $0.159 | 11.3 |
| Fitchburg Gas & Elec Light Co | 26,290 | $0.401 | 131.0 |
Where these numbers come from
US Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861, data year 2024 — the annual filing every US electric utility makes. Rates are residential revenue divided by residential sales on bundled service; solar counts are from the net-metering schedule of the same filing. Utility number 54913. Download the source archive and check any figure here against it.
Form 861 is annual and publishes roughly eleven months after the year it covers, so 2024 is the most recent utility-level data that exists anywhere. It is not today's tariff. For a current price, read your own bill; for a current rate structure, read the utility's tariff sheet. This page is for scale and comparison — what a typical household on this system pays, and how many of them have already installed solar.
Written and maintained by guarledes . Last reviewed 2026-08-19.