Eversource Connecticut in 2026: solar without net metering

One utility, 157 Connecticut towns

Eversource in Connecticut is legally The Connecticut Light and Power Company d/b/a Eversource Energy, which is how it appears in the pending rate case caption and in the RRES Program Manual's definitions. It is investor owned, and its rates are set by the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA), which approves both the Standard Service supply rates and the annual rate adjustment mechanism covered below. The parent describes itself as New England's largest energy delivery company, with nearly 10,000 employees serving 4.4 million electric, gas, and water customers across Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire; its service territory page prints approximately 4 million, and both figures appear here as printed on the respective pages. In Connecticut the electric territory covers 157 towns, with gas service in 85.

The customer base is bigger than the headline EIA number suggests. EIA-861 data for 2024 counts 998,217 bundled service customers (924,132 of them residential) plus 292,661 delivery-only customers who buy supply from a competitive supplier (250,288 residential). Summed, our computation, that is 1,290,878 total customers, 1,174,420 residential. For contrast, United Illuminating had 256,302 residential bundled customers in 2024, and the state's municipal utilities are small: Bozrah Light & Power at 2,434, Norwich Public Utilities at 18,870, Groton Utilities at 12,284, Wallingford at 21,405. If your bill says any of those names, this guide's compensation math is not yours; the RRES program covers Eversource and United Illuminating, not the municipals.

Sources: OCC consultant RFP, Docket 26-05-10; Eversource company page; Eversource service territory page; EIA-861 2024 data files; EIA Table 6, 2024; and the RRES Program Manual.

RRES: Buy-All or Netting, a 20 year choice

Say it plainly: Connecticut has no net metering for new solar customers. Systems that received authorization to operate, or submitted a complete interconnection application, before January 1, 2022 stay in the legacy Net Metering Program. Everyone since enrolls in Residential Renewable Energy Solutions, a tariff program established under Public Act 19-35, codified at Conn. Gen. Stat. 16-244z, launched in January 2022 as a six year program and administered by Eversource and United Illuminating. PURA sets the rates each year, targeting a 9 to 11 percent return for participants and 50 to 60 MW of annual deployment. It is working at scale: 368.58 MW across 46,426 projects through September 2025, per ISO New England's December 2025 Connecticut progress report.

The homeowner decision is one form field with two decades of consequences. Here are the two tariffs as they stand for applications submitted in 2026.

Sources: Eversource RRES incentives page; RRES Program Manual, Version 2026.1; and PURA RRES program page.

The Netting mechanics deserve a closer read than most sales decks give them. Exports are valued at the Netting Tariff Export Rate, defined in the program manual as the customer's currently applicable retail rate inclusive of Standard Service energy supply charges, calculated using the currently applicable Standard Service rates. Monetary credits are computed on monthly net excess generation, carry forward month to month, can offset customer, supply, and delivery charges, and can be cashed out when the account closes. So far that sounds like net metering. The difference is the Solar Energy Adjustment (UI calls it the Solar Production Charge): a non-bypassable 4.02 cent per kWh charge on everything the production meter registers, exported or self-consumed, set by PURA annually, billed on-bill. In practice it is the toll for keeping retail-rate exports. And because the export rate references Standard Service, a Netting customer's compensation moves twice a year, in whichever direction supply moves.

Buy-All is the opposite temperament. Everything the array produces is sold at $0.3289, RECs included, and the Eversource page states the incentive rate is locked in once enrolled. That is a number above the 28.51 cent 2024 retail average and well above the 23.6 cent stack in force today, fixed while retail wobbles. The catch cuts both ways: if a rate case pushes retail past the mid 30s over the next two decades, the Netting customer rides it up and the Buy-All customer watches. Fixed certainty against a floating rate with a production toll. That is the actual decision, and nobody can make it for you without modeling both.

Eligibility guardrails, from the manual: nameplate capacity of 25 kW AC or less (co-located storage does not count toward the cap), 1 to 4 family homes, systems sized to historical load with allowances for electric vehicles and heat pumps, and a Home Energy Solutions assessment first unless the home was built in 1980 or later. PURA reviews the program annually in dockets numbered XX-08-02; the Year 5 decision in Docket 25-08-02, issued December 17, 2025, set the 2026 rates quoted here, following Year 4 in 24-08-02, Year 3 in 23-08-02, Year 2 in 22-08-02, Year 1 in 21-08-02, and the original authorization in Docket 20-07-01 on February 10, 2021.

Sources: RRES Program Manual, Version 2026.1; Eversource RRES incentives page; PURA RRES program page; Eversource CT interconnection page; and the ISO New England CT progress report, December 2025.

Smart-E loans and tax breaks are alive. The federal credit is not.

Connecticut's state financing tool is the Green Bank's Smart-E Loan: no money down, fixed monthly payments, arranged through a network of local contractors and lenders, usable for over 90 home energy and resiliency improvements including solar panels and battery storage, with up to 25 percent of the loan allowed for non-energy measures. The current maximum is $50,000. Eligibility runs through the home and the borrower: the property must be in Connecticut, owner occupied, 1 to 4 units (condominiums individually metered), with qualification based on factors including credit score and debt to income ratio and final underwriting by the lender. Some improvements require a Home Energy Assessment first. The published standard APRs by term:

Source: CT Green Bank Smart-E Loan page. The same page advertises a special 1.99 percent financing offer on heat pumps, which does not apply to solar.

Both state tax shields survive 2026. Sales tax first: CGS 12-412(117)(A) exempts sales and use of solar energy electricity generating systems, including related equipment and installation services, along with solar water and space heating and geothermal systems. Property tax second: CGS 12-81(57)(A) exempts a Class I renewable energy source installed for private residential use on or after October 1, 2007, for single family through four family homes or farms, where estimated annual production does not exceed the estimated annual load for the location or contiguous property of the same owner. Participation in net metering or tariff programs does not disqualify it, and neither does third party ownership through a lease or power purchase agreement. One deadline hides in subdivision (57)(E): a written application to the local assessor by November 1 in the applicable assessment year. Miss it and the exemption waits.

The federal side is over. IRS FAQs under Public Law 119-21 state that the 25D residential clean energy credit is not allowed for any expenditures made after December 31, 2025, that an expenditure is treated as made when the original installation is completed, and that prepaying in 2025 did not preserve the credit for a later install. A Connecticut system finished in 2026 cannot claim it. Any proposal still carrying a 30 percent federal line is either stale or dishonest, and either way it overstates your savings by nearly a third of the system price. Worth noting: the RRES rates above were set by PURA for 2026 applicants with that reality already on the books.

Sources: CGS 12-412; CGS 12-81; and IRS FAQs under Public Law 119-21.

What is still moving at PURA

The big one is live. Docket 26-05-10, captioned Application of The Connecticut Light & Power Company d/b/a Eversource Energy to Amend its Rates Schedules, is the company's general rate case. Eversource filed its notice of intent May 20, 2026 and filed the amended rate schedules July 14, 2026, seeking approximately $727 million in annual increases, about 18 percent for residential customers, or $451 million (about 11 percent) excluding 2018 to 2025 storm costs, with approved storm costs proposed for securitization, per the Attorney General's statement on the filing. For solar shoppers the translation is simple: the delivery stack in this guide is the one Eversource is asking to raise, and since Netting compensation references the retail rate, this docket touches solar economics in both directions.

The storm cost fight that preceded it did not go the company's way. In Docket 25-12-13, decided July 29, 2026, PURA unanimously disallowed about $500 million, roughly 40 percent, of Eversource's $1.36 billion storm cost request, $103.5 million of principal and $396.7 million of carrying costs, on top of a $193 million reduction already flowed through the May 1 rate adjustment and storm reserve. The annual adjustment itself, Docket 26-01-03, is decided business, with rates effective May 1, 2026 through April 30, 2027 and the next cycle setting rates from May 1, 2027.

On the program side, Docket 25-08-02 set the 2026 RRES rates on December 17, 2025, and its RE01 subdocket carries the 2026 contractor enforcement work. Further out sits the successor question: under Public Act 25-173, Section 6, PURA's January 21, 2026 draft legislative report proposed a unified eight year successor program for 2028 through 2035, and for residential customers it recommended reducing export compensation below the full retail rate, moving to instantaneous netting, keeping a Buy-All option for low income and multifamily affordable housing customers, and incentivizing storage. Comments were due February 4, 2026, with a final report anticipated February 27, 2026. Read that recommendation once more if you are on the fence: the current 2026 tariffs, locked for 20 years at signing, are more generous than what PURA has sketched for the program's successor. Waiting has a price. And the routine one: Standard Service resets January 1, 2027.

Sources: OCC consultant RFP, Docket 26-05-10; Attorney General Tong statement, July 14, 2026; Consumer Counsel statement on Docket 25-12-13; PURA May 1 rate adjustment announcement; PURA RRES program page; Harris Beach Murtha on the successor study; and the Eversource CT supply rates page.

What we could not verify

As of August 30, 2026, a few items stayed out of reach. The fetched Eversource interconnection page and the RRES Program Manual publish no standard business day review timeline for simplified residential interconnection, so this guide states fees but not turnaround. The DECD distressed municipalities page presents the 2025 list year and the grace period rule, but the individual town names did not render in the fetched page content, so confirm your town on that page directly. The RRES Year 6 annual review, which by the manual's numbering convention would be Docket 26-08-02 setting 2027 rates, was not confirmed as opened or decided on any fetched page. One discrepancy is left out on purpose: ISO New England's December 2025 deck lists a proposed customer-owned adder of $0.032 per kWh for Year 5, but the final Program Manual's incentive table does not include that line, so it is not treated here as a confirmed 2026 rate. And the company's own pages print both 4.4 million and approximately 4 million total customers across three states; both appear above as printed. These stay gaps until a primary source closes them.

Sources: Eversource CT interconnection page; RRES Program Manual, Version 2026.1; DECD Distressed Municipalities page; ISO New England CT progress report; Eversource company page; and the Eversource service territory page.