Unitil August interconnection data is a workbook on the Massachusetts DPU utility interconnection page, posted September 22, 2026. National Grid, Eversource East, and Eversource West were posted the same day. None of those files is permission to skip a one-line. Fitchburg is in Unitil territory, and Fitchburg jobs still fail when the plan set and the Unitil application disagree. The posting does not settle the circuit, and it does not settle the drawing.
You do not have the row counts, the circuit names, or the megawatts from that workbook. This note will not supply them. The useful question is how to read a posted file before anyone tells a customer the circuit is fine, and what the plan set still has to show after the file has been opened.
Four postings, one date
September 22 put four August 2026 interconnection files on the DPU page. A designer who opens only the Unitil file is looking at one utility, not a statewide picture, and a designer who opens all four still does not have a ranking. The posting does not print a statewide ranking. A side-by-side you sketch in a notebook is not a number Unitil published, and it is a bad way to tell a Fitchburg customer the circuit is fine.
Treat the Unitil file as a snapshot of applications the utility reported for August 2026, posted on a known date. It is not a hosting-capacity study, and it is not a building permit. The standing Unitil process is already written up in the Unitil solar interconnection post. This article is the August data drop only. It does not replace that process, and it does not add a kilowatt cutoff the older post would have to carry.
How to read the Unitil August interconnection data
Read it before you speak, and write down only what you can point to.
- Name the month and the post date. August 2026 data, posted September 22, 2026. If the sentence you are about to say does not include that the file is a posted snapshot, it is already too strong.
- Point at this job's circuit, or do not claim it. Before you tell a customer a Fitchburg circuit is fine, you need a place in the workbook that speaks to the circuit this application will use. If you cannot point to it, you do not have the sentence.
- Do not sum a column. A total you created on a scratch pad is not Unitil's number. Do not call that sum the queue, and do not put it in an email.
- Do not supply a circuit name from memory. If the workbook does not show the circuit in a way you can indicate, saying the name anyway implies a confirmation you do not have.
- Record what you actually saw. File date, and the figure you could point to. When you could not point to one, the honest line is that the August data is posted and the plan set still has to match the application.
That is the whole method. It is slower than "Unitil looks open." It is also the method that does not invent a statistic the DPU file was not quoted for. Athol Energy prepares interconnection drawings from the application and the survey information, not from a glance at a posting date.
What you still cannot tell the customer
"The circuit is fine" needs a traceable line in the September 22 Unitil file for the circuit this project will use. A town name is not that line. Fitchburg being in Unitil territory is not that line. Another job on a different street is not that line. If the salesperson wants a one-sentence comfort statement for a proposal, the sentence you can stand behind is smaller: the August workbook is posted, you are not quoting a megawatt from it, and the plan set has to match the application before anyone characterizes the circuit.
Simplified and expedited paths both exist at Unitil. This post does not state the kilowatt cutoff between them. Do not let a customer conversation pick the path by guessing. The path changes what the utility reviews. It does not delete the one-line, and it does not make a mismatched AC size acceptable. Read the application against the current process, and keep the drawings on the size and the equipment the application states.
What the Fitchburg plan set still has to show
The city and the utility do not share a login. Fitchburg's building review is a separate submission from the Unitil application. This post does not name a Fitchburg fee or a Fitchburg portal. It does name the drawing failure that survives any fee schedule: the plan set and the application describe different projects.
The plan set still has to show the point of interconnection the application names, on a site plan that places that point on the parcel. The one-line has to show the path from the inverters to that point, with the AC size the application states. If export differs from nameplate, both numbers appear. Inverter data, and transformer data if the application includes a transformer, match the equipment list on the application PDF. Models and quantities match. Address matches. A title block that still carries last month's kilowatts is the defect, even on a day when a workbook was posted.
Permit design is the Fitchburg set. The Unitil application is the other file. When they disagree, Unitil processes the application it received and the city reviews the sheets it received. The customer may still be holding a third number from the sales conversation. Three numbers is the problem to fix before anyone says the circuit looks favorable. Pick the size on the application if that application is what was filed, or revise the application and the sheets together. Do not leave them split and hope the reviewer reads only one.
One size, then the as-built has a chance
An as-built drawn later cannot repair a job that was permitted at one size and studied at another. As-built drawings should record the size that was actually approved and built. That only works if the approval and the permit were already the same size. Starting construction from a sales number, while Unitil has a different AC size and Fitchburg has a third, means the as-built becomes the document that confesses the split.
Freeze one AC size in the job folder on the day you read the workbook. Write it on the one-line, on the site plan schedule, and on a copy of the application page that states it. If those three already match, the September 22 file did not give you new drawing work, and it also did not give you a circuit blessing. If they do not match, the workbook is irrelevant until they do. Massachusetts solar design for a Fitchburg job is that match, plus a Unitil application that says the same thing as the plan set.
Open the August file if you want the posting in the project record. Date it September 22, 2026. Then go back to the one-line. The circuit is not fine because a workbook went up. The circuit is not a sentence you get to say until the workbook supports it and the plan set agrees with the application.