Warwick, Massachusetts is an archetype of a charming New England town. Surrounded by state forest, its snug main strip is filled with historic buildings.
Against that postcard setting, the glint of rooftop solar around town is eye-catching.
“I think they’re handsome,” said resident Janice Kurkoski, looking up at the small panels atop the town hall. “I think there’s room for a few more up there, don’t you?”
Kurkoski chairs Warwick’s Building and Energy Committee, which organized the solar installation. The group’s been busy; Warwick has put up solar at the highway department garage and the firehouse, and has another system planned for the town’s lone school. Their aim is to replace gas and oil as the town’s primary fuel for transportation and heating in the coming years.
New England has some of the highest energy costs in the country. Cold winters, along with other rising expenses like spiking health insurance premiums and inflation have rural towns in the region looking for ways to save money. Many have embraced a switch to electric appliances, powered by home-grown renewable energy. They expect the move will both spare their pocketbooks and help the planet.
Warwick’s fire house solar panel project cost $170,000, which came from the town’s budget. But Kurkoski said it wasn’t a tough sell when her committee pitched it to Town Meeting members.
“ The payback was about six years, and everybody said, ‘Boy, that makes a lot of sense,’” she said. “It wasn’t unanimous, but it was passed very easily.”
The rooftop array will generate more than enough power to cover the fire station’s electric needs. The town will sell the surplus power it produces back to the grid.
“ We’re able to really help move ourselves away from the use of fossil fuels and be aware of the climate impacts of that,” said Brian Snell, Warwick’s Selectboard chair, “but also save us money now that we’re going through a difficult time.”
In the last 10 years, Warwick has cut energy use in public buildings by more than half, reduced oil use by 80% and slashed winter heating costs by two-thirds, according to Kurkoski.
Warwick Community School was one of the biggest projects. The town’s largest building now uses heat pumps to power its heating, cooling and hot water systems.
Each day, some of the town’s 53 elementary-age children are ferried to and from school in an electric 7-seater SUV that the kids call the “blue bus.” The charger sits behind the school.
The Building and Energy Committee plans to install a new “smart” charger this summer that will recharge the car battery when there’s less regional demand for energy. That’s projected to save another $2,000 per year. Not to mention, the SUV’s battery can provide backup electricity during a power outage, keeping the lights on in the school.
The financial case for rural electrification
New equipment like heat pumps, EVs and solar panels doesn’t come cheap. To help cover the up-front cost of electrification, Warwick tapped into grants offered by Massachusetts. The state has a goal to zero out its carbon emissions by 2050, and offers a number of grants and incentives to help communities and residents go electric.
Electrification — the process of switching from oil and gas-fueled systems to those powered by electricity — is a core part of several New England states’ strategies to cut climate emissions. While climate messaging may be a draw for some, others in the region are swayed by a different green argument.
“ It’s a lovely bonus that it’s much better for the environment,” said Michael Stoddard, executive director of Efficiency Maine, but “money talks first.”
Stoddard’s agency provides rebates that have encouraged thousands of Maine households and businesses to install heat pumps.
That help is needed in the smallest of New England’s towns. Rural households tend to spend a larger portion of their budgets on energy than larger communities, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization.
Buildings in rural places can lose heat faster than their more tightly-packed urban counterparts. Many also are older, and may have leaky windows or lack insulation, requiring more energy to heat in the region’s harsh winters.
Getting fuel to rural areas can also be expensive. Natural gas pipelines don’t stretch to the most remote parts of the region. And delivering fuel and wood pellets to remote places is costly and unreliable in poor weather, said Stoddard.
But finding the money to increase energy efficiency and invest in renewable power is a challenge for rural communities. Many have smaller tax bases and may not have town employees who can apply for grants and oversee projects. A report conducted by the Island Institute in Maine describes a “rural efficiency gap,” where remote places that suffer the most from high energy costs are least able to access resources to resolve them.
Helping rural communities plug in
Warwick’s Building and Energy Committee didn’t wait for outside help to start the town’s electrification journey. True to New Englanders’ flinty reputation, they simply got to work.
“We just did it,” said Janice. But it was slow-going and difficult in those early years.”
In 2015, the committee applied to join the Massachusetts Green Communities program, an initiative for municipalities pursuing renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. Towns that meet the program’s requirements, such as reducing their energy footprint by 20% in five years, can gain access to grants, technical assistance and planning support.
The program has provided more than $200 million to cities and towns since it started in 2009. Kurkoski said it helped Warwick ramp up its efficiency and electrification projects.
Similar initiatives exist across the region. The programs vary from state to state, but all aim to connect rural municipalities to funding and expertise they would otherwise lack.
In New Hampshire, the nonprofit Clean Energy New Hampshire provides “energy circuit riders” who travel the state to guide municipalities towards electrification. The program has become the model for a national pilot.
As the impacts of electrification start showing up on towns’ bills, word travels to their neighbors, according to Katrin Kasper, the circuit rider for New Hampshire’s Seacoast region. Kasper said momentum for these initiatives can grow quickly.
“People have so much contact with each other,” Kasper said, “so you can just get so much done by just knowing a few people to start with.”
In Warwick, many residents wear multiple hats, and a passionate few have pushed for big changes. Assistant Town Manager Diana Noble (who’s married to the town Select Board chair) came up with the idea to buy the electric “blue bus,” inspired by how much she loves driving her own EV.
Noble described the process of convincing the town to invest in one of her proudest green initiatives.
“It wasn’t hard,” she said nonchalantly. “I did a little bit of research.”
Volunteerism is part of small-town culture, said Kurkoski.
“I find that people care here,” she said , “and I feel like if somebody cares, they want to hang out with other people who care. So you’re not alone.”
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
Copyright 2026 WBUR