Delaware Power Bills Rising Why Reformers Say Enough Is Enough
Delaware electric bills are starting to feel like a subscription service nobody remembers signing up for. One month it is supply costs. Next month it is fees. Then comes the fine print, wearing sunglasses and pretending it's not a tax.
The renewable mandate has a reality problem.
Delaware’s Renewable Portfolio Standard, or RPS, requires utilities to get a set share of electricity from renewable sources. Right now, that target is 25.5%, and it rises every year until it reaches 40% in 2035.
That sounds bold. It also runs into a tiny inconvenience called physics.
State Rep. Mike Smith, a Pike Creek Valley Republican, put it plainly: Delaware does not have enough renewable energy to meet the current mandate, much less the future one. When utilities fall short, they can make alternative compliance payments, known as ACPs.
Translation: if the required clean power is not available, customers still get the bill.
In 2025, Delmarva Power customers paid $14.3 million in ACPs, passed through to ratepayers.
That is not exactly “free energy from the sun.” That is “the sun was unavailable, please insert credit card.”
House Bill 80 tried to tap the brakes.
Rep. Smith’s House Bill 80 proposed rolling the RPS back to 10% and freezing it there for 10 years. The idea was not to ban renewable energy. It was to stop pretending Delaware can mandate its way into power it has not built yet.
That pause could have given the state time to:
Build actual renewable capacity
Connect more power to the regional grid
Give ratepayers a break from penalty-style costs
Instead, the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee tabled HB 80. In Dover-speak, that means the bill was shown to a very comfortable chair and never seen again.
RGGI is the tax with a fake mustache
Delaware also belongs to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI. It requires fossil fuel power generators to buy allowances for carbon dioxide emissions.
The cost does not vanish. It gets folded into electric bills like spinach in a toddler’s smoothie.
In 2025, Delaware ratepayers collectively paid $12.3 million in RGGI-imposed costs. Supporters can fairly say RGGI helped cut power-sector emissions across participating states. Reformers answer that the program now operates like a hidden energy tax, especially when families are already getting squeezed.
Eliminating the Tax You Didn’t Know You Were Paying
Senate Bill 65, sponsored by Sen. Gerald Hocker (R-Ocean View) and State Rep. Bryan Shupe (R-Milford South), would have taken Delaware out of RGGI and ended the hidden charge.
Supporters pointed out that Delaware’s residential electricity costs already run higher than in most states, and that staying in a program that has already met its goals is a needless burden.
Leaving would also free up state leaders to pursue more practical, affordable energy policy.
The verdict: SB 65 sat in the Senate Environment, Energy & Transportation Committee for more than a year without even a hearing. It didn’t die so much as it was left in the waiting room until the lights went off.
The Plan to Actually, You Know, Make Electricity
Finally, the one that stings the most, because it wasn’t about cutting anything. It was about building.
Delaware imports most of its electricity.
That’s bad for energy security, and it adds transmission costs to every bill. So State Rep. Kevin Hensley (R-Townsend, Odessa, Port Penn) and State Sen. Brian Pettyjohn (R-Georgetown) put forward House Bill 186, a bipartisan bill to boost in-state power generation.
The idea: create an Electricity Production Tax Credit (EPTC), plus bonus credits, to encourage building and operating up to three high-efficiency combined-cycle gas turbine plants, each producing between 100 and 500 megawatts. For scale, two 500 MW plants would produce more than enough electricity to power every home in Delaware at peak demand.
Combined-cycle gas plants aren’t some speculative moonshot. They’re proven, dispatchable workhorses that form the backbone of modern grids, offering operational flexibility and lower environmental impacts than most traditional plants. Rep. Hensley said the proposal would boost cost-effective production right here at home.
The committee graveyard keeps getting crowded.
The bigger complaint is not just one bill or one fee. It is the pattern.
Three power bill reform efforts went to committee and never came back. No dramatic floor fight. No grand showdown. Just a quiet trip into the legislative sock drawer, where reform bills go to meet missing batteries and old takeout menus.
And the price tag to taxpayers? Zero. The bill required no public expenditure.
The verdict: Died in the House Revenue & Finance Committee. A bill that costs nothing, builds power plants, and had bipartisan sponsors still couldn’t get out of committee, which tells you something about how Dover works.
That is why the phrase Delaware Power Bills Rising Why Reformers Say Enough Is Enough hits a nerve. The costs are real, but the votes often are not.
Ratepayers deserve a real debate.
Renewable energy goals can be worthwhile. Cleaner air matters. So does a reliable grid. So does affordability.
But if a mandate cannot be met without buyout payments, and if carbon fees get buried in bills, lawmakers should not hide the ball. They should debate the costs in public and vote.
Delawareans do not need magic and more DSA tax raising. They need power policy that works when the sun sets, the wind stops, and the bill arrives anyway.
The Silver Lining (Sort Of)
There’s a little good news: a reworked, improved version of the power plant legislation is expected to come back in the 154th General Assembly. So, if you’ve been staring at your electric bill wondering whether anyone in Dover has noticed, some of them have. The question is whether the committees will let them do anything about it next time.
Keep an eye on your bill, and on your legislators.
Source: “Bills Seeking to Increase Electricity Supply and Eliminate Needless Expenses Left to Die,” Delaware House of Representatives “Newsletter” Issue 684 – September 25, 2026
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