Why the savings argument is modest here
In states paying a small fraction of retail for exports, a battery earns its keep by converting cheap exports into expensive self-consumption. Georgia, Utah and Tennessee all work that way.
New Hampshire does not. Net Metering 2.0 credits 100 percent of supply, 100 percent of transmission and 25 percent of distribution, so an exported kilowatt hour is worth roughly 75 to 95 percent of a self-consumed one.
A battery closes that remaining gap, which is a real benefit but a small one per kilowatt hour. The gap is the distribution component, not the whole retail rate.
So be sceptical of any Dover quote where a battery pays for itself on export arbitrage. The mechanism exists but the margin is thin, and a projection claiming otherwise has either the wrong credit rate or the wrong arithmetic.
The utility incentive worth confirming
Eversource has offered a residential battery incentive in New Hampshire, reported at $230 per kWh with a cap of $3,000. On a typical residential battery that is a meaningful contribution.
Utility battery programmes change more often than statutes do, so confirm the current rate, the cap, the enrolment requirements and whether the programme is open directly with Eversource before letting a quote include it.
Ask what participation requires of you. These programmes generally involve the utility dispatching your battery at certain times, which is the reason the payment exists.
Ask how programme participation interacts with holding charge in reserve for an outage, because those two objectives pull against each other and you should be the one deciding the balance.
The resilience case, specified as equipment
Solar alone does not power a house during an outage. A standard grid-tied inverter disconnects when the grid goes down, for the safety of line workers, which surprises more homeowners than any other fact about solar.
Backup requires a battery plus the right inverter and switching arrangement, and it should appear in the quote as equipment rather than as an assurance.
Ask precisely which circuits would be backed up and for how long under a realistic load, including whatever your heating system needs. The answer should be a list of circuits.
Ask what happens after the first day. A multi-day winter outage with short days and possible snow on the array is the scenario that matters in coastal New Hampshire, and a battery sized for an evening is a different product.
The pieces that remain, kept separate
The 30 percent federal Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D expired for property placed in service after December 31, 2025, so a cash or loan purchase receives no federal tax credit on either the panels or the battery, and New Hampshire has no state credit or rebate since SB 303 repealed it in 2024.
Section 48E survives at 30 percent for third-party owners under leases and power purchase agreements, so ask what a provider claims and what reaches you in the rate.
What exists is Net Metering 2.0 at the partial credit rate, the RSA 72:62 property tax exemption if your municipality has adopted it, and any Eversource battery incentive you have confirmed directly.
Ask for the system priced and modelled with and without storage, so the incremental cost is a visible number, and price the resilience as something you are choosing to buy rather than folding it into a savings figure.