This is an opinion column. It reflects the view of this publication and not the reporting in our news coverage, which is linked throughout.
Councillor Todd Taylor took a beating in the room on Monday night for opposing a solar deal pitched as free money for Chelsea’s poorest households. He called the state program behind it a hidden tax, said it leaves out the working poor, and said councillors were not told what they needed to know. The City Council sent the deal back to committee, 4-3, over his objection that more meetings would not change his mind (our report on the meeting).
We went and read the documents: the state regulation, the state’s program guidelines, the utility tariff that pays for it, the federal price data and the agreement the council was handed. On the main points, Taylor is right.
He is right that everyone pays
The two projects, BWC Merriam Brook and Blue Meadow Brook, are not in Chelsea. They are paid through the state’s SMART solar incentive program, and SMART is not paid for out of the state budget. It is paid for by electricity customers. The utilities “recover SMART Program costs from all distribution customers through the SMART factor,” the Department of Public Utilities wrote in its December 2025 notice on the program’s newest round. The model tariff the department approved for all three utilities, in National Grid’s filed copy, says the charge “shall be applied to all bills” per kilowatt-hour, under the label “Distributed Solar Charge.” The utilities estimated the cost of this round alone at $6.7 billion over 20 years if fully subscribed.
“This money is taken directly out of Eversource’s pocket,” Taylor said. More precisely, it comes out of every Eversource customer’s pocket, which is his point. In July, Massachusetts residents paid an average of 30.49 cents a kilowatt-hour for electricity, against a national average of 18.31 cents. Only Hawaii, California and Maine paid more, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Taylor called the program “one of the reasons” bills have gone up. It is one line on that bill, and it is a real one.
One correction to the record: the Legislature did vote for SMART, in a 2016 law, and handed the rates to the Department of Energy Resources. But Taylor’s complaint stands. The cost of the program has never been put to residents as a cost. Few people paying the Distributed Solar Charge know what it is.
He is right that the money does not all reach the people it is sold for
Here is what nobody told the council. Under the state rules, a solar project can earn a “Community Shared” bonus on top of its base incentive if it sends a share of its value to low-income customers. One way to qualify is through a city’s electricity aggregation program, which is what Chelsea is being asked to be. For projects qualifying in the current program year, that bonus is 7 cents a kilowatt-hour, and the state proposes 6 cents for next year, according to the Department of Energy Resources’ draft annual report. The bonus is locked in for 20 years and paid by ratepayers.
What the developer must pass along to low-income customers through a city aggregation is set by the state guideline: 30 percent of the project’s average basic-service energy value. In the state’s own worked example, that comes to about 4.2 cents a kilowatt-hour, fixed for 20 years.
So ratepayers fund a bonus of about 7 cents, and Chelsea’s low-income customers receive about 4. The rest stays with the developer. If the city’s estimate of $400,000 a year to residents is right, and the projects qualify at this year’s rates, a rough calculation puts the bonus at about $670,000 a year, leaving something like $270,000 a year, more than $5 million over 20 years, with companies building panels in other towns. Those figures are our estimate, built from the state’s example rate. The real numbers belong in the contract, and the contract did not have them.
He is right that the council was not given the facts
“What it doesn’t say,” Taylor said of the presentation, is who was paying for it. Vice President Norieliz DeJesus said councillors had asked “very specific questions” in committee, “and now we’re finding news that wasn’t shared for us.”
The agreement in the council’s packet was a template. The page that would list each solar site, the share of its output assigned to Chelsea and the credit value, the page that produces the $400,000 figure, was blank (our September explainer). The template binds the city to exclusivity: no similar deal with anyone else, up to 125 percent of the estimated savings, without the developer’s written consent. The revolving fund drafted to hold the money caps spending at $250,000 a year, against the $400,000 the city says is coming in. Nobody has explained where the difference goes.
Asked Monday whether Chelsea could leave the contract once it signs, City Manager Fidel Maltez said, “I don’t know the answer to that question.” Asked whether Chelsea could join later if it said no now: “I do not know.” A 20-year commitment should not be approved on those answers.
He is right that the working poor are left out
“There’s no way to opt into this for anybody who is not on public assistance,” Taylor said. “So that means any of the working poor.” Councillor Giovanni Recupero, a Democrat, agreed with the Republican Taylor “for once.”
They are right about the deal in front of them. Chelsea’s plan, as Maltez described it, reaches only customers already on Eversource’s low-income discount rate, which people in SNAP or MassHealth are enrolled in automatically. A family that earns too much for SNAP and too little to be comfortable pays the Distributed Solar Charge and gets nothing back.
What makes that worse is that it does not have to be this way. The state’s regulation defines a “Low Income Customer” more broadly. Besides people on a discount rate or in needs-based programs, it covers anyone living in a neighborhood where household income is at or under 65 percent of the statewide median or that is a federally designated environmental justice area, and anyone who self-certifies through a state form. The working poor could be let in. As drafted, Chelsea’s deal does not let them in.
What the council should do
This is not an argument against solar, or against helping low-income households with their bills. Chelsea Electricity Choice has saved its customers real money, and DOER says SMART returns $1.49 in benefits for every dollar it costs. The city manager says that if Chelsea declines, the savings go to New Bedford or Salem instead. That is the argument for getting the terms right, not for signing a 20-year deal before seeing them. Before any vote, the council should have:
- the completed system appendix for each project, with the kilowatt-hours, the credit value and the bonus rate it will receive;
- a written answer, in the contract, on how Chelsea can terminate, and what it gives up;
- eligibility widened to the state’s own definition, so that self-certifying working families are included;
- a revolving fund cap that matches the money coming in, or a plain statement of where the rest goes;
- the exclusivity clause struck or limited.
Maltez says Salem, Revere and Cambridge are at the same point. If the developers need Chelsea’s aggregation program to earn their bonus, Chelsea has leverage. Taylor wanted the council to say no and “send a message back to Beacon Hill.” Saying no until these five things are on the table would send it.