Sierra Club Delaware Chapter has won key victories in Delaware on the renewable energy front. We have successfully increased our state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard to require more renewables in Delaware. We created an historic Community Solar Program to help everyone, especially low- and moderate-income families, lower their energy bills while supporting renewables in Delaware. We are now working to educate the public and our officials on the benefits of expanding residential solar and offshore wind in Delaware. But that is just the start!
Renewable Portfolio Standard
Created in 2005, the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) was designed to ensure that our largest utility, Delmarva Power, and the unregulated smaller utilities were procuring energy from renewable resources throughout our area. It also helped jumpstart the solar market in Delaware by requiring that a certain amount of energy come from solar installations. The program worked very well and together with other states in our region, we have been able to bolster the renewable energy marketplace and drive the economies of scale needed to transition our energy supply away from fossil fuels.
Unfortunately, after years of inaction on expanding the RPS, Delaware was falling behind our neighboring states and losing investments that would help us enter into the renewable energy economy. The Sierra Club Delaware Chapter led the charge to expand our RPS through the creation of the Clean Energy Coalition.
Together with over 39 other organizations in Delaware, we were able to secure the first increase in the RPS since its inception to ensure that 40% of our energy comes from renewable resources by 2035. We are now working on ensuring we have a long term goal of 100% renewable energy by 2050.
Community Solar
Delaware has had a law regarding virtual net metering, or community solar, since around 2009. Unfortunately, that legislation had a lot of very draconian restrictions that stopped all community solar projects from being created. The Sierra Club Delaware Chapter and the Clean Energy Coalition, worked together with the Coalition for Community Solar Access and Turning Point Energy to create one of the most inclusive and sustainable Community Solar programs in the nation. The bill passed almost unanimously, with only one Republican voting against the measure in the State House of Representatives.
We then kept on working to ensure that the regulations and consumer protections created through the Public Service Commission would ensure universal access to the energy bill savings that Community Solar can provide. We expect Community Solar projects to begin production in mid- to late-2023.
For more information about all things solar energy, check out the website we helped create with Energize Delaware: SolarDelaware.org
Residential Solar
The Sierra Club Delaware Chapter has been working with the Solar Energy Coalition to help ensure that residential solar is available to all Delaware residents. In 2022, our second largest utility, the Delaware Electric Co-op, and several municipalities had already stopped or were getting ready to stop the ability of residents to install solar on their rooftops and get credit for its production. We worked hand- with Senator Stephanie Hansen and the Energy Stakeholders Group to come up with a temporary solution as we worked towards a permanent residential solar program.
This solution ensured that everyone was paying into the societal benefit programs that we all benefit from in Delaware through cleaner air and expanded grants to install solar. It raised the amount of solar that residents were allowed to install throughout the state and reversed the municipalities' decisions to turn off the ability of residents to install solar on their roofs. In a concession to ensure that the residential solar program matched the intent of only offsetting your own energy consumption, and not becoming an energy generator, the decision was made to have all excess generation revert to the utility at the end of the annual billing period.
We encourage all those with solar, or planning to install solar, to work with their utility to ensure that the billing cycle ends when your credits have been entirely used up. All solar customers are able to adjust their billing cycle one time to make sure they are capitalizing on their investments.
For more information about all things solar energy, check out the website we helped create with Energize Delaware: SolarDelaware.org
Offshore Wind
The Sierra Club Delaware Chapter is a member of the People for Offshore Wind Energy Resources (POWER) Coalition organized by Peggy Schultz of the League of Women Voters of Delaware. The Sierra Club has always been a big proponent of clean, sustainable offshore wind energy for Delaware. We agree with the members and mission of POWER that Delaware should follow the lead of every other state from South Carolina to Maine in procuring offshore wind energy for Delaware residents. Offshore wind has been a touchy subject in Delaware ever since the failed Blue Water Wind project in 2008.
However, since that time, the prices for offshore wind have come down tremendously. As outlined in the DNREC-Commissioned report from the Special Initiative on Offshore Wind (SIOW), Delaware could procure offshore wind energy at the same or lower cost compared to the dirty fossil fuel-based energy we are currently purchasing. Right now, the vast majority of our energy comes from natural gas generators inside and outside of Delaware.
But we could be producing around 30% of that energy from clean, sustainable offshore wind sited 13-20 miles off our coast for the same cost to ratepayers. This would dramatically reduce our energy-based greenhouse gas emissions, help reduce toxic air pollution, and save a tremendous amount on health costs in Delaware.
You can help the effort by telling Governor Carney that you support an offshore wind project for Delaware through his online form here.
Resources
For more information about all things solar energy, check out the website we helped create with Energize Delaware: SolarDelaware.org
Community Solar Fact Sheets
For all those who want to take a deeper dive into Community Solar, we have just the tool for you.
Check out all the great fact sheets we came up with. You can download and print any of them to share with your friends, families, and legislators.
Offshore Wind Fact Sheets
Curious about offshore wind and what it can do for Delaware? Check out these great fact sheets we put together with the help of several organizations and organizers engaging on the issue right now in Delaware!