New solar projects will begin providing clean energy to Delaware Electric Cooperative customers over the next three years.
The Co-Op plans to purchase power produced at seven utility-scale solar facilities being built across Kent and Sussex Counties.
“These are projects that are strategically positioned to help us with operating our utility system - almost all of them adjacent to existing substations that we have," said Delaware Electric Cooperative president and CEO Greg Starheim. "And by doing this we’re able to rely on these facilities to allow us to become less dependent on fossil-based power supply for our members.”
Starheim says the Co-Op is working with Old Dominion Electric Cooperative and EDF Renewables Distributed Solution, a solar and battery storage project developer - to purchase energy from the Broom Solar Facility planned near Ocean View. That solar farm will produce enough energy to power hundreds of homes when completed in 2023.
The Co-Op and EDF also expect to have new solar facilities near Clayton, Harrington, Felton and Milford ready by 2024.
Two projects in Hartly and Greenwood are set to start producing power later this year and are already underway.
“There are two projects that are being done in coordination with our generation and transmission cooperative (Old Dominion Electric Cooperative)," Starheim said. "One is located in Greenwood. The other is located a little further south of us. These are projects in the five-megawatt size range.”
Starheim says work on the solar farm in Hartly is nearly complete and set to go online in March.
The Greenwood project features nearly 16,000 individual solar panels and should begin producing power by late summer or early fall.
The Delaware Electric Cooperative is a member-owned not-for-profit utility powering more than 108,000 homes, farms and businesses in Kent and Sussex Counties.
