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As energy bills continue to soar, Delaware is taking new steps to help more residents save money by connecting to solar power.
Gov. Matt Meyer announced last week what he calls the “most comprehensive” solar and battery storage program in the U.S.
The initiative, dubbed Delaware SHINES, will offer grants, loans, and rebates to help residents, small businesses, and nonprofits utilize solar energy generation and battery storage. The goal is to lower energy bills, decrease the state’s greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce strain on the electric grid.
The initiative, which stands for “Solar + Storage Home Incentive Network for Economic Stability,” comes about a year after the Trump administration dismantled parts of the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides incentives for green energy. The move repealed the Residential Clean Energy Credit, covering up to 30% of the cost of installing qualified clean energy properties, such as solar energy projects.
“We understand that what is being done in Washington is neither based on sound energy science, nor economic policy,” Meyer said during an interview with WHYY News. “If you want to reduce costs for Delawareans and Americans, if you want to sustain the environment for generations to come, we should be incentivizing solar and wind and other renewable energy forms.”
The price per unit of energy, as well as the price to deliver energy to households, has increased significantly—driving energy companies like Delmarva Power to raise peoples’ bills.
Prices for grid operator PJM Interconnection’s capacity auction, a complex pricing system that guarantees future electricity supply, have increased significantly due to a supply-demand imbalance, increased demand from AI data centers, and slow construction for new energy generation.
The energy needed to power data centers, large facilities housing servers for artificial intelligence and cloud computing, has led some states to pass laws preventing those costs from being handed down to residents.
Experts say at-home solar and battery storage can help reduce the load, decreasing the need for open-market power purchases.
“Anything that you can do to generate your own electricity, as well as reduce your consumption, which is the cheapest and cleanest thing to do, can be beneficial,” said Drew Slater, executive director of Energize Delaware, which is coordinating Delaware SHINES. “I don’t think their prices are going to come down anytime soon at the PJM market, which is a significant part of your everyday bill.”
Meyer stated that one of his goals is to ensure Delaware produces more of its own power, as about 60% of the state’s total electricity is sourced from out-of-state power suppliers through the PJM grid.
