Wilmington residents encouraged to sign up for community solar initiative

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Delaware residents continue to face soaring electricity bills — in some cases, doubling or tripling over the past two winters. Electricity provider Delmarva Power has proposed a rate hike.

Though freezing temperatures have contributed to high utility bills, rate hikes have also been driven by investments in grid infrastructure, demand for artificial intelligence–focused data centers and the rising cost of natural gas.

As a solution, Delaware lawmakers are encouraging residents to apply for community solar energy programs to reduce their bills.

Community solar programs allow homeowners and renters to receive energy from a shared solar farm and gain solar credits that automatically appear on their electricity bills.

Wilmington residents are now applying for community solar.

Developer-operator Dimension Energy has partnered with public benefit corporation Ampion to enroll customers who could save about $300 a year on their energy bills.

“These are projects that can come online quickly and help the grid operate better, but also provide immediate relief to customers — many of whom don’t really have options to cut their electric bills,” said Brandon Smithwood, vice president of policy for Dimension Energy.

The solar farms, built on underutilized farmland, will send renewable energy to the Delmarva grid. The projects operated by Dimension Energy in Delaware will generate 10 megawatts of generation capacity that could power about 2,500 homes.

Residents who sign up to become subscribers will receive a share of the solar energy produced. Each month, solar credits will appear on their Delmarva bill and reduce what they owe by 10–20% of the credit value. That could amount up to $336 per year in individual savings, according to Dimension Energy and Ampion.

Nathan Owen, CEO of Ampion, said he believes community solar is the only solution to increased energy rates.

The price per unit of energy, as well as the price to deliver energy to households, has increased significantly. Prices for grid operator PJM Interconnection’s capacity auction, a complex pricing system that guarantees future electricity supply, increased significantly because of a supply-demand imbalance, increased power demand from AI data centers and slow construction for new energy generation.

“We have never seen these types of price increases,” Owen said. “The capacity auctions that we’ve seen recently in PJM are putting incredible upward pressure on prices.”

Unlike new natural gas power plants that could take up to seven years to complete, community solar projects can be built in two years or less. They reduce the amount of electricity the grid uses, which relieves the pressure to drive up costs, said Dimension Energy’s Smithwood.

“The grid can’t keep up, and it can’t keep up in part because we can’t build enough power generation fast,” he said. “These are small, community-scale projects that fit on 20 acres or on a warehouse roof and they can be built fast.”

Community solar also is an alternative to installing rooftop solar panels, which can be expensive and often aren’t an option for renters or low-income homeowners.

Brice Shirbach, a Wilmington resident, signed up for community solar as his Delmarva bills more than doubled this winter to heat his 1,800-square-foot house. However, his primary interest in community solar was to reduce his individual carbon footprint and encourage large-scale solutions.

“Going to a hybrid car is great, or using energy-efficient light bulbs is great, but the steps we need to be taking as a society are of a much larger scale,” Shirbach said. “So, when something like this becomes available, it’s exciting and an opportunity to jump at the chance.”