About

About Keep Lights On MA™

An initiative of Massachusetts cities and towns coming together to plan and deploy locally-owned clean microgrids that strengthen resilience and reduce long-term energy costs.

KLO Massachusetts HERO Hubs NextGen Energy
The Initiative

What Is Keep Lights On MA™?

Communities across the Commonwealth are facing rising electricity costs, growing energy demand, more frequent outages, and pressure to electrify buildings and fleets — often with limited staff, limited capital, and little control over the regional grid.

Keep Lights On MA has been designed to meet this moment: bringing cities and towns together to solve these challenges collectively by planning and deploying municipal-owned clean microgrids that strengthen local resilience while reducing long-term energy costs. The solution is called HERO™ — Hubs for Energy Resilient Operations.

A Massachusetts town center
The Solution

About HERO™ Hubs

A U.S. Department of Energy-recognized category of community clean energy infrastructure — and an opportunity that simply hasn’t existed for towns before now.

Why HERO Hubs Are Different

HERO Hubs are not a rooftop panel program. They’re purpose-built infrastructure — community-scale solar paired with battery storage and intelligent controls, designed specifically for municipal ownership. Communities hold an ownership stake from day one. Revenue stays local. Resilience is built in.

What HERO Hubs Do

Through carbon-free generation, battery storage, and smart microgrid controls, HERO Hubs power municipal buildings under normal operation and keep critical facilities — fire stations, water treatment plants, schools serving as emergency shelters — running during grid outages. Battery storage ensures resilience for the sites that cannot lose power.

See How HERO Hubs Work →
NextGen Energy installation
The Developer

About NextGen Energy

The HERO Hub solution is developed by NextGen Energy, a community energy infrastructure company that finances, builds, and operates distributed clean energy infrastructure for communities across the United States.

NextGen Energy has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Energy for its work transitioning the HERO Hub model into a replicable national approach. Keep Lights On MA is that model in action in Massachusetts.

NextGen Energy holds trademarks including HERO™ and Keep Lights On™. A patent for the Integrated Energy Resources and Communications Network is pending with the USPTO.

Ready to learn more?

See exactly how the model works — from feasibility through ownership transition.

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