Why Should Delaware Care?
As energy prices rise in Delaware, solar power could be a cheaper alternative. And recent House and Senate bills are seeking to remove regulatory obstacles that deter the installation of solar on homes, and the construction of solar fields.
Delaware lawmakers advanced two bills last week that would remove regulatory obstacles facing solar projects, just as the state scrambles to increase energy production amid soaring electricity prices.
The State Senate on Tuesday passed SB 239, which removes Delaware’s cap on when utilities can stop buying new energy from households with solar panels — a process known as “net metering.”
Two days later, the House of Representatives passed HB 269, which would require utilities to modernize the process of connecting large-scale solar power projects to the grid. The legislation could help clear a backlog of solar field applications sent to the power grid, said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Frank Burns (D-Pike Creek).
“We desperately need to bring new energy resources online,” he added.
The bills — which each passed through their respective legislative chambers this month with near unanimous support — come in the wake of rising energy prices in the state. Those increases have largely been the result of regional electricity supplies not growing as fast as rapidly increasing demand.
Much of that increased demand regionally has come from new hyper-scale data centers constructed in nearby states. Proposals for similar facilities in Delaware could exacerbate the energy crunch.
The bills’ progressions through the legislature also come as Delaware lawmakers try to increase in the amount of renewable power produced in the state.
In 2025, about 8% of Delaware’s in-state net electricity generation came from renewable resources. Most of that was produced by solar energy, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
State officials want that figure to reach 40% by 2035. That goal has likely become more difficult to attain recently as the Trump administration has worked to slow the growing renewable energy industry.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture no longer provides guaranteed loans to large-scale solar projects on farmland — a move that some Delaware farmers celebrated because solar fields cover viable farmland.
The federal government has also made significant cuts to clean energy incentives and pulled a permit for an offshore wind project that would bring more than 100 turbines nearly 12 miles off the coast of beach communities in Maryland and Delaware.
How does solar impact the grid?
When the Delaware legislature first passed laws allowing households to sell excess energy to utilities, they capped the amount of power that could flow back into the grid.
They did so out of concern for the impact on the power grid’s reliability, and for the possibility that electricity prices could go up for people who do not have solar panels on their roofs.
But Energize Delaware, a state-chartered energy nonprofit, later published a study showing that while net metering may raise energy costs in some ways, its overall effect on the grid financially benefits all energy customers.
“As long as the system is safe and reliable, we should be able to add solar arrays to the system,” Energize Delaware Executive Director Drew Slater said.
SB 239 — the bill that removes the net metering cap — does include an exception allowing utilities to reject surplus household electricity if panels collectively produce too much electricity.
Representatives with the Delaware Electric Cooperative and the Delaware Municipal Electric Coalition said they support the bill, which passed unanimously in the Senate last week.
Delmarva Power holds a “neutral position,” a company spokesperson told Spotlight Delaware in a statement that also said the bill raises “important questions about how costs and benefits are shared among all customers.”
Burns, the sponsor of HB 269, said an outdated system used to connect large-scale-solar fields to the grid has caused a backlog of projects. That backlog, in turn, has earned Delaware a bad reputation among solar companies.
“Right now, community solar developers don’t want to come to Delaware,” Burns said.
The Delmarva Power spokesperson told Spotlight Delaware that the utility is also neutral about Burns’s bill, saying the company already is working with regulators to speed up the process of connecting new solar fields to the power grid.
Representatives with the Delaware Electric Cooperative and the Delaware Municipal Electric Coalition both said their companies are also neutral on the bill.
HB 269 passed in the House on Thursday with some bipartisan support, though Rep. Richard Collins (R-Millsboro) expressed concerns over solar fields covering farmland.