Governor Matt Meyer signed a package of data center bills into law on Wednesday, August 26, 2026, and said Delaware ratepayers will not be asked to subsidize the enormous power demands of these facilities. WHYY News
One law in that package tells an operator to generate its own energy over a ten year period. That power has to meet Delaware’s renewable energy portfolio standard, which is the state’s official list of the power sources that count as clean. WHYY News describes the qualifying sources as wind, solar or nuclear. Delmarva Power, the company that delivers electricity to most Delaware homes and businesses, has to create a separate and higher electricity rate that applies only to hyperscale AI data centers. Hyperscale is the industry’s word for the very largest facilities. The package also puts the cost of new long distance power lines, new local wires and reserved power supply on the AI data center itself, whenever possible. WHYY News
A portion of a facility’s backup power now has to come from clean energy sources. DataCenterDynamics Large facilities also have to cut their power use during peak demand, when the grid is being pushed hardest and outages are most likely. And AI data centers can no longer collect Delaware’s tax credits for creating jobs.
Does the power stay off until the clean generation exists?
DataCenterDynamics reports that the bills require operators to build clean generation to power their facilities over a ten year period. The duty runs across a decade rather than acting as a condition on getting connected. WHYY News, DataCenterDynamics and the Sierra Club all describe that ten year build duty, and none of them says Delmarva may refuse to energize a site until the generation is bought or under contract.
The difference decides when money gets spent. A build duty over ten years lets a campus take service, start earning, and add generation while it runs. A condition on service would mean no revenue at all until a wind or solar project is signed, which reorders financing, land control and construction on every project in the state.
The operative words are in the enrolled bills, which are House Bills 233, 445 and 310 and Senate Bill 326. CoastTV House Bill 445 is the one carrying the generation duty, and its synopsis is stricter than the coverage of it. It requires the facility to produce renewable energy within the state, ramping under a plan filed with the Public Service Commission until it reaches 100 percent of its energy usage from in state production by the tenth year. House Bill 445 A power purchase agreement with a wind farm elsewhere in PJM does not discharge that.
The threshold sits in House Bill 233, and it is the first thing to check. A large energy use facility uses, or is projected to use, a monthly maximum demand of 50 megawatts at a load factor of 85 percent or greater, or a monthly maximum instantaneous demand of 100 megawatts. House Bill 233 Load factor is average draw against peak, so the 50 megawatt test catches the site that runs hard and steadily rather than one that merely spikes. Separate buildings can be aggregated into one facility on proximity, common ownership or control, control through an affiliate, shared local electrical infrastructure, and the reliability risk their size and closeness create together. Phasing a campus into parcels under separate entities is the structure that rule reaches.
The same bill sets a second clock that is easy to confuse with the first. An electric service agreement has to run a minimum of 10 years commencing after load ramp, and a minimum of 15 years in total once the ramp period is counted. House Bill 233 That is a contract term, not the generation ramp in House Bill 445, and a project satisfies both.
Enforcement lands in utility filings not the statute
The summary available here does not address how the clean energy duty would be enforced. The Sierra Club says a second law signed the same day gives the Delaware Public Service Commission more power to limit rate increases and to look inside utility finances. The commission is the state board that decides what a utility is allowed to charge. CleanTechnica
That same board has to approve Delmarva’s new hyperscale rate, so the numbers that will actually bind a project are going to show up in a utility filing and not in the statute. The bill uses terms such as hyperscale load and whenever possible without spelling out how they apply when someone decides who pays for a new line.
The utility’s duty to connect a large load may now be optional
Sierra Club Delaware chapter director Dustyn Thompson said Delaware is the first state to remove the obligation to supply electricity to these large loads when serving them would harm consumers. CleanTechnica A Delaware site can be turned down even with the land, the water, the fiber and the money already in place. That refusal risk belongs in the site selection model.
Whether the law removes the duty to serve is the first thing to confirm in the enrolled text.
What changes for a large AI data center load in Delaware
| Dimension | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Who is caught | No large-load definition in Title 26. | 50 MW at an 85% load factor, or 100 MW instantaneous, with affiliated and adjacent sites aggregated. |
| Own generation | No obligation to build or contract for generation. | Must generate own clean energy over a ten-year period, produced in state. |
| Contract term | Negotiated with the utility. | At least 10 years after load ramp, and at least 15 years in total. |
| Rate treatment | Served under existing Delmarva rates, no hyperscale class. | Delmarva to create separate, higher rate for hyperscale AI data centers. |
| Grid cost allocation | Transmission, distribution and capacity costs could reach other ratepayers. | AI data centers bear those costs whenever possible. |
| Backup power | Diesel engines, no clean share specified. | A portion of backup power must come from clean sources. |
| Peak demand | No stated duty to curtail. | Large facilities must reduce power during peak demand to avoid outages. |
| Job tax credits | Eligible for tax credits for creating jobs. | Barred from receiving job-creation tax credits. |
What the package does to the numbers on a Delaware site
Starwood is developing a campus rated at 1.2 gigawatts in New Castle, about seven miles south of Wilmington, in a state that has only 19 AI data centers today. DataCenterDynamics A gigawatt is a billion watts, so a campus of that size that has to line up its own clean generation is starting a power generation business alongside the computing business.
A Delaware state report found that rising demand driven by AI data center development could push the average wholesale electricity price up by more than 80%. The wholesale price is what electricity costs in the regional market before it is delivered to a house. WHYY News A developer underwriting a Delaware hyperscale site now carries the higher hyperscale rate and the cost of new transmission and distribution infrastructure wherever possible. It also carries the cost of its own generation, with no job credit to set against any of it.
The clean share of backup power is worth considering at the design step. Diesel engines get ordered years early. Replacing part of that plant with batteries or another clean source changes what the site has to be permitted to emit. It also changes the equipment layout and the delivery time.
Delaware is not the only state writing these rules
RTO Insider reported on August 30, 2026 that Delaware has enacted strict clean power requirements for data centers and that the state is vying with New Jersey for the nation’s most comprehensive protective measures. RTO Insider OK Energy Today compares the Delaware self supply requirement to Oklahoma’s law on power generated on the customer’s own site, which Governor Kevin Stitt promotes. It also reports that Meyer and Stitt appeared together at the National Governors Association meeting in Oklahoma City less than a month before the Delaware signing. OK Energy Today Delaware’s new law requires AI data centers to generate their own clean power, and it is described as very much like Oklahoma’s behind the meter law. A developer choosing between states has to compare the requirements and not the headlines.
Tomorrow’s topic
California SB 886, the data center ratepayer protection bill.