Why Massachusetts Went Dark. And How To Prepare For The Next Storm.

Two days after the weather subsided, more than 160,000 customers across eastern Massachusetts were still in the dark after a blizzard buried the region under more than two feet of snow. In towns like Brewster, officials reported that nearly the entire community went dark, with restoration expected to take several days.

NOAA snow accumulation totals for the Massachusetts area on February 23, 2026

For many, this is an inconvenience. For those relying on oxygen concentrators, refrigerated insulin, or home health services, it is a life-threatening crisis. For our local small businesses, it’s a total work stoppage. You can shovel a sidewalk and salt a driveway, but you cannot run a point-of-sale system, preserve inventory, or manage a remote team without a stable connection to the world.

If you sat in the dark wondering how a modern state’s infrastructure could collapse so quickly, it is important to understand one thing:

This was not a power supply issue.

The day after the storm, ISO New England reported a capacity surplus of roughly 1.9 gigawatts. There were no emergency actions and no "Texas-style" generation shortfalls. The regional grid had plenty of power; it just couldn't get that power to your front door.

Massachusetts is suffering from a classic "last mile problem."

The fragile last mile

The "last mile" is the physical network connecting your home to the regional grid: the neighborhood poles, the local transformers, and the heavy tree canopy they weave through. When the last mile breaks, it doesn’t matter if the power plants are humming at 100% capacity. If the wire on your street is down, your house is effectively an island without power.

Snow covers the ground as a power pole is suspended after lines were pulled down by a fallen tree during a winter storm in Edgartown, Massachusetts, on Monday.

The blizzard of 2026 was a perfect storm designed to break the last mile:

• Hurricane-force wind: Peak gusts hit 83 mph at Nantucket Airport
• Wet, heavy snow: More than 30 inches of heavy, wet “heart attack” snow fell in southeastern counties
• The Result: A Barnstable County official estimated that 95% of outages were caused by tree branches snapping under the sheer weight and wind, physically tearing lines away from houses

When the last mile is broken, there is no remote fix. It requires boots on the ground and buckets in the air. However, utility crews cannot operate bucket trucks safely until winds drop below 35 mph. This creates a dangerous paradox: while the storm is at its most violent and you need power the most, the grid is essentially unfixable.

The last mile can’t be fixed overnight

After a storm like this, the conversation inevitably turns to "undergrounding." We ask: “Why aren’t the power lines buried safely underground where the wind can’t reach them?”

It’s a fair question, but the answer is sobering. Undergrounding is a massive, slow, and incredibly expensive undertaking. Recent urban projects have seen costs reach $46M–$51M per mile. At that rate, converting the entire state would take decades of construction and billions of dollars added to ratepayer bills.

Undergrounding might save the next generation, but it won’t save you from the next storm.

A more resilient energy system is possible today

If we can’t move the state’s entire grid underground overnight, we have to change how your home interacts with it. True energy resilience starts with households.

This is the core of the Daylight approach.

Instead of viewing your home as a passive endpoint—a "victim" of the grid’s fragility—Daylight turns it into an active, independent participant in the energy system. We solve the last mile problem by moving the energy journey into your own hands.

By integrating on-site solar and local storage, we make your home "islandable." The moment a tree limb hits a wire three streets over, your home "islands" itself, safely detaching from the failing grid and instantly switching to your local reserves.

Your bridge over the last mile: Solar + Battery

In a Daylight system, solar and batteries are the two pillars of your independence. If the grid is a bridge that has washed out, this combination is the temporary span that keeps you moving.

For a Massachusetts homeowner, this holistic approach changes the math of a blizzard:

• Solar is your personal power plant: Even on a gray, post-blizzard day, solar panels generate power. In a traditional setup, that power is wasted during an outage because the system is designed to shut down for safety. Daylight unlocks that power.
• The battery is the bridge: The battery captures that solar energy and stores it for your home. It allows you to maintain a normal life while your neighbors are hunting for candles.
• No more "fuel chain" risks: Traditional generators rely on a constant supply of gas or propane. If 30 inches of snow have closed the roads and gas stations are dark, you aren't getting a refill. A solar-and-battery system is a closed loop—it fuels itself from the sky.
• Instant backup: With a battery + solar system, the transition to your "island" happens in milliseconds—often before you even realize the street has gone dark.

By combining these tools, Daylight gives you an immediate alternative to the grid's fragility.

Power On, Massachusetts

Grid resiliency is a fundamental necessity for modern life. Our heat, our communications, our medical safety, and our livelihoods all depend on uninterrupted power. As grid strain increases, we have to stop asking if the last mile will fail, and start asking what we do when it does.

You don’t have to be a spectator to infrastructure failure. You don’t have to wait for the bucket trucks to arrive to get your life back. By combining battery storage and on-site generation, we are building resilience where it matters most: home by home.

With Daylight, true resilience means never losing power in the first place.