Representatives from Eversource and CPower told attendees at a MassDEP webinar that municipal water and wastewater facilities and eligible food‑sector sites can earn revenue and reduce future supply charges by curtailing demand during system peaks or by deploying battery storage.

“There are no penalties for underperformance,” said Bill O’Connor, a supervisor at Eversource who manages the utility’s demand‑response program. He described two primary Connected Solutions pathways: targeted dispatch (three to eight high‑peak events per summer) and daily dispatch (near‑daily calls in July and August). O’Connor said participants in targeted dispatch are paid $45 per average kilowatt curtailed across event hours; the daily dispatch pathway is paid $200 per average kilowatt across events. O’Connor emphasized that fossil‑fuel generation is not permitted for these measures and that strategies commonly include load shedding, schedule shifting, variable‑frequency drive adjustments, set‑point changes and battery discharge.

Phil Chula, senior account executive at CPower, described the DCAM statewide procurement (contract ENE 51) that allows public facilities to sign up via a competitively bid statewide contract. CPower aggregates distributed flexibility and, according to Chula, “has paid out over $1,200,000,000 to our participants.” He said the DCAM vehicle simplifies procurement and payments for public entities, and that CPower and DCAM can help route program revenues into expendable trust accounts where state payment mechanics make direct vendor checks difficult.

Baselines, telemetry and practical thresholds
O’Connor explained how baseline calculations and weather adjustments are used to compute curtailment and payments; for most non‑battery assets, a 10‑day baseline is typical and utilities apply a weather adjustment on event days. For batteries there is no baseline: payments are based on actual discharge during event hours. CPower and Eversource noted telemetry and metering considerations: program participation typically requires a data logger that records five‑minute intervals; real‑time metering hardware can cost several thousand dollars, so Chula advised that sites under about 100 kilowatts of curtailment potential must be evaluated case by case for program economics.

Stacking revenues, CapTag savings and battery monetization
Chula and O’Connor both described how program revenues can be “stacked”: payments from ISO New England capacity or ADCR programs, utility Connected Solutions payments, and reduced supply charges tied to the single highest summer hour (CapTag) can combine to improve project economics. Chula said a typical water or wastewater plant may be able to curtail about 500 kW on average and estimated that, for representative sites, the combined earnings and savings could range from roughly $285,000 to $615,000 over five years depending on the dispatch pathway and performance assumptions. CPower also said it offers an AI‑based scheduling platform (EnerWise) to optimize battery charge/discharge schedules across program revenues and bill savings.

Enrollment and customer protections
Both presenters said enrollment options include direct utility enrollment or working with curtailment service providers (CSPs) such as CPower; they noted there is no up‑front charge to facilities for enrollment and the worst outcome for a participant is nonpayment for underperformance rather than a penalty. CPower described post‑installation portals and dashboards that show real‑time performance during events and monthly settlement metering that demonstrates results.

How this relates to GAP 4
MassDEP said an applicant’s plan to participate in demand‑response programs can earn a 5‑point bonus in GAP 4 scoring; applicants do not need to be enrolled at the time of the mid‑application deadline if they commit to enroll as part of a funded project. Presenters encouraged sites to discuss demand‑response potential with Eversource, National Grid or a CSP when developing their GAP 4 application.

Contacts and next steps
Presenters offered to perform site reviews and said they would follow up with interested participants. CPower and Eversource contact details were provided during the webinar for follow‑up assessments and enrollment assistance.