The governor of Delaware has signed a suite of legislation into law to protect ratepayers from rising costs associated with data center growth in the state.

Governor Matt Meyer signed several bills into law that established a "bring your own power" clean energy mandate for data centers, requiring them to build clean energy generation to power their facilities. The legislation will require operators to generate their own clean energy over a ten-year period. A portion of the data centers' backup power will also need to come from clean energy sources.

“Delaware is open to innovation, investment and economic growth, but growth must be responsible. It cannot come at the expense of those who live here,” Meyer said during the bill-signing event. “Data centers that do not pay their fair share do not belong in our communities. Data centers cannot jeopardize the reliability of our electric grid, and Delaware ratepayers will not be asked to subsidize enormous demands for power.”

In addition, under the new laws, Delmarva Power, a subsidiary of Exelon, will form a separate, higher electricity rate for hyperscale data centers. As part of the new rate class, data center operators will be required to incur the costs associated with building new transmission and distribution infrastructure, as well as capacity procurement, whenever possible.

The new rules also require large-scale data centers to reduce their power demand during peak times to avoid outages. Meyer also signed into law new rules that would prevent data centers from receiving tax credits for creating jobs.

Environmental groups received the news positively, with Sierra Club stating: “These bills make Delaware a leader in promoting protection of our energy grid and electric costs for residential customers. Delaware, the first state, is now the first state in the nation to pass a bring your own energy policy with clean energy requirements, the First State to require such a comprehensive agreement with the utility to guarantee all data center costs are paid for by data centers, and the first state to remove the obligation to supply electricity to these large loads if it would harm consumers.”

At present, Delaware has a small data center footprint, with Data Center Map recording 19 data centers in the state, most of them in Wilmington.

However, the state has several large-scale projects in its pipeline that could see data center capacity surge. This includes a 1.2GW project being developed by Starwood in New Castle, approximately seven miles south of Wilmington.

Delaware is the latest state to impose more stringent rules on data centers regarding power usage. Most recently, US utility Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has imposed higher rates on data centers seeking a grid connection across its service area.

Other states to impose new rate classes and/or rules include Ohio, North Carolina, and Virginia, among others.