The state battery storage law behind Massachusetts 10 gigawatt plan
On March 16, 2026, Governor Maura Healey signed Executive Order 654, a state battery storage law setting an energy plan for Massachusetts. It targets 10 new gigawatts of energy resources for the state by 2035, a gigawatt being 1,000 megawatts of delivery capacity. Its own text splits that target into 4 gigawatts of new solar power, 2.5 gigawatts of new supply into the regional grid, and 3.5 gigawatts of demand management, a category covering virtual power plants and managed electric vehicle charging rather than battery storage alone, and states these 3 parts add up to the full 10 gigawatts. The order separately names a goal of 5 gigawatts of energy storage, without saying whether that goal sits inside the 10 gigawatt total or adds to it. Since the 3 named parts already sum to the full 10 gigawatts, the storage goal more likely counts within them rather than on top, a reading drawn from the order own arithmetic, not a stated line. It also tells regulators to let solar developers pay grid connection costs over time. Nowhere in its text does the order name a dollar savings figure. The widely repeated claim that the plan saves 10 billion dollars comes from a public statement Healey made herself, reported separately, not from the order she signed.
These 3 figures are the order own stated components and sum to the full 10 gigawatt target.
Show the numbers
| New solar | 4 |
| New grid supply | 2.5 |
| Demand management | 3.5 |
What Minnesota regulators actually approved
On April 2, 2026, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, the state regulator over utility rates and projects, approved Capacity Connect, a battery storage program from Xcel Energy, in a first phase of up to 200 megawatts with a total budget of 430 million dollars. Xcel first proposed the program on October 6, 2025. Each battery unit runs about 1 to 3 megawatts, sited at businesses, industrial sites and nonprofits, not houses. Sparkfund, the company deploying the units, will place them preferentially in underserved communities. The commission set an interim checkpoint at 50 megawatts and ordered an independent evaluation due by November 2027. Xcel has told regulators it wants a further 600 megawatts of storage by the end of 2030, beyond this first phase.
The Minnesota figure comes from source 4 and is converted here from 200 megawatts to 0.2 gigawatts for comparison, a conversion made for this article and not a figure either source states in gigawatts.
Show the numbers
| Massachusetts storage goal | 5 |
| Massachusetts demand target | 3.5 |
| Minnesota battery program | 0.2 |
Why competing developers call the program a flawed model
Although we appreciate Xcel's creative step toward investing in the distribution system, this is a flawed model.
Sarah Whebbe, director of policy and regulatory affairs at MnSEIA. Source 3.
MnSEIA, the Solar Energy Industries Association and the Coalition for Community Solar Access, 3 trade groups for competing solar and storage developers who were parties in the case, said in a joint statement that the approved program is the only distributed storage program in the country with a cost benefit ratio below 1, meaning its counted costs outweigh its counted benefits. The groups said Xcel earns a guaranteed return on the spending while customers who pay Xcel bills carry the financial risk, and that the commission let Xcel skip its standard connection queue while competing, non utility developers still wait in it.
Community solar and distributed storage developers have a proven track record of delivering affordable, resilient power to the grid while saving ratepayers money.
Nick Bowman, senior manager of markets and research at the Coalition for Community Solar Access. Source 3.
Xcel executive Ryan Long framed the same program differently.
We're focused on supporting economic growth and the needs of our communities by building out and modernizing our energy grid.
Ryan Long, president of Xcel Energy Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. Source 2.
What neither state actually did
Neither action puts a battery in a house. Massachusetts 3.5 gigawatt figure covers demand management broadly, including managed vehicle charging alongside any storage. Minnesota battery units sit at businesses, industrial sites and nonprofits under contracts a utility and state regulators control, not something a homeowner buys. What changed in 2026 is that 2 state governments, one through an executive order and one through a utility commission approval of a rate funded program, put battery storage into an official plan for keeping the grid running, at a scale neither state had committed to before.