Before They Plug In, They Pay
Of, By & For the People: Delaware Civic Engagement Guide — Wednesday, June 10, 2026 · Part 1 of 2
📅 Legislative Session: The final 10 session days began yesterday | Session ends June 30, 2026
Good morning, neighbors.
Six data centers — warehouse-sized computer farms that can each draw power on the scale of a small city — are planned in Delaware right now, by the Sierra Club’s count. Together they’d demand nearly as much power as the rest of us use combined. The question Dover answers in the next three weeks is simple to say and hard to get right: when they plug in, who pays? Two bills on the move this week give the same answer — they do — in two different ways. This is Part 1 of a two-part issue. Today, your electric bill. Friday, your ballot.
Let’s get to work.
— Gregory S. Layton, The Delaware Project
🎯 Engage This Week
🛡️ HS 1 for HB 233 — Data centers pay their own way, by law
House Substitute 1 for House Bill 233, sponsored by Rep. Frank Burns, Speaker Minor-Brown, and Sen. Stephanie Hansen, establishes a simple rule in Delaware law: big new power users pay their own way. Before any large energy user — roughly 50 megawatts and up, depending on how steadily and how hard it draws power — can plug into our grid, the Public Service Commission (the state board that oversees utilities) must approve a binding contract called an Electric Service Agreement. That contract assigns the costs of new wires, new power supply, and new studies to the facility that caused them — not to you.
Three protections worth knowing by name:
The double share. Large facilities pay into the funds that support low-income energy assistance and clean-energy programs at twice the rate the rest of us pay.
The leak detector. An independent “Incremental Cost Test” checks, on a regular cycle, whether a big user’s costs are leaking onto everyone else’s bills. If they are, the fix includes a fee that comes back to households and small businesses as a direct bill credit.
First to power down. In a grid emergency, data centers go to the front of the line for power cuts within every tier — their everyday operations powering down before homes do, and even their critical systems powering down before hospitals and water plants do. “We can’t have people who are sitting at home with oxygen generators… having the power cut off because of the impacts of these large energy users,” Burns said. A facility that builds new in-state generation that meets Delaware’s climate and renewable standards can earn an exemption — protection with a built-in incentive to add supply.
Status: Out of committee and on the House Ready List — the queue of bills cleared for a floor vote. A vote could come any day in the sprint.
What you can do: Tell your representative what you think before the vote, not after. Find yours in 30 seconds: legis.delaware.gov/FindMyLegislator.
🌱 HB 445 — Bring your own power
This one is in committee this afternoon — and you can take part. House Bill 445, sponsored by Rep. Debra Heffernan, takes the next logical step: rather than just billing data centers fairly for the power they use, it requires them to bring it — building or funding new in-state generation to cover their operations. The idea is simple: if a huge new user creates new demand, it should help create the supply to meet it. A data center couldn’t connect to our grid until a quarter of its required generation is already online, and it must produce 100% of its energy in-state within 10 years, with nuclear power allowed to count toward the state's renewable-energy targets. A 30-year binding contract with the PSC, backed by an insurance bond that pays the state if a facility walks away or goes bankrupt, keeps the promise enforceable.
The hearing is today at 4:00 PM before the House Natural Resources & Energy Committee, House Majority Hearing Room (H217), Legislative Hall. You can attend in person, register for the webinar, or watch the livestream — links are in the committee meeting notice. And here’s the part most people don’t know: written comments count even after the gavel falls. Email HouseCommitteeComment@delaware.gov any time through close of business tomorrow — every comment becomes part of the official record.
🔍 How We Got Here (Two Minutes of Backstory)
Regulators didn’t wait for the legislature. Since last October, the Public Service Commission has had a freeze in place: no new customer drawing 25 megawatts or more can hook up in Delmarva territory until a special “large load” electric rate is finalized (Docket 25-0826). In April, Delmarva filed its proposed version of that rate — agreeing to a 50-megawatt threshold but asking for shorter contracts, a longer ramp-up, and no required exit notice. HS 1 for HB 233 would settle those arguments by statute, on the stricter side: 15-year commitments, a 5-year limit on the ramp-up period, and 5 years’ notice before leaving.
The substitute also revives Senate Bill 205, Sen. Hansen’s bill requiring PSC sign-off before big users connect. SB 205 was reported out of its Senate committee in March but remained on the Ready List; its core ideas live on inside HS 1.
🏢 Regulatory Watch
Your supply rate isn’t final — and your comment can still matter. The Delmarva Standard Offer Service increase we covered last week — that’s the default electric supply most households are on — took effect June 1: about $15.14 a month, a 9.66% increase, as the Commission’s notice calculates it for a typical home using 811 kilowatt-hours a month (before two smaller line items that partly offset). But here’s what most coverage missed: the PSC approved those rates only on a temporary basis, subject to refund with interest if it later finds them unjust or unreasonable. Written comments and objections are accepted through July 27 — file in the DelaFile e-filing system under Docket No. 26-0389, or mail the Commission at 861 Silver Lake Blvd., Cannon Bldg., Suite 100, Dover, DE 19904.
📋 Also Worth a Line
Senate Bill 308 w/ SA 1, Sen. Hansen’s Load Forecast Accountability Act, shares this afternoon’s committee agenda. It gives the PSC oversight of the demand forecasts utilities send to PJM, the regional grid operator — so data-center projects that may never get built don’t get counted twice and drive up the costs we all pay to keep enough power on hand.
Senate Bill 326, Sen. Hansen’s ratepayer-protection bill, cleared the Senate Environment, Energy & Transportation Committee yesterday and is now on the Senate Ready List, with an amendment pending alongside it. As introduced, it would — among other things — limit how much of Delmarva’s “non-mandatory” spending (projects not required to keep the lights on) can be charged back to our bills. Another one to watch for floor action before June 30.
🗳️ Friday: Part 2
The other half of this week’s story turns from power lines to political power. Friday’s issue covers the Delaware John Lewis Voting Rights Act — which drew a rally to Legislative Hall last week — and the bills deciding how Delawareans amend our own constitution.
🤝 Help Spread the Word
Democracy works better when more people participate. If a neighbor’s electric bill came up over the fence this week — and whose didn’t? — forward them this issue. Every reader who knows where the comment box is becomes a voice in the record.