Delaware’s Interconnection Hack: Treat It Like Code Ado…

Contributed by Vaughan Woodruff | Principal, EquinoxDG

Across the U.S., nearly every state has taken a similar approach to defining electrical safety. They charge an administrative body to review updates to the National Electrical Code (NEC), identify any changes that may not suit their jurisdiction, and adopt the NEC as the state electrical code – either in its entirety or with amendments. This has led to relative uniformity across the country, with more than 90% of states enacting state electrical codes based on the NEC and nearly all those states having updated their codes in the last five years.

Regulating the grid safety considerations of interconnecting technologies such as solar and energy storage hasn’t benefited from this type of approach. Only about 75% of states have adopted utility regulations, and each of these states has its own unique set. Unelectrical code adoption, which often occurs on a regular cadence and seeks to address safety issues before they become problems, interconnection regulation is often reactive and occurs only after legislators or regulators discover that the programs they authorized cannot be implemented under existing rules.

Understaffed utility regulatory bodies then conduct formal proceedings in which they are often required to litigate between utilities that highlight their concerns about impacts on grid safety and reliability, and parties claiming that the utility position is overly conservative. The result of this dynamic results in state-specific approaches to address the same challenge: how to reasonably evaluate grid impacts of these types of projects.

A recent bill passed by the Delaware legislature, House Bill 269, will shift interconnection regulation in the state to a process more akin to adopting state electrical codes. Learning from its own failures, Delaware has redesigned how it regulates interconnection in a manner that could be a model for numerous states around the country.

Adopting Interconnection Procedures Alone Isn’t Enough

Delaware’s pivot in interconnection regulation is a direct result of recent challenges. In 2021, the legislature expanded the state’s community solar program and opened the door for the development of projects as large as four megawatts. Three years after the program launched, zero projects were in operation. This was not a result of demand – more than 200 interconnection applications had been submitted to the state’s only investor-owned utility, Delmarva Power. The problem wasn’t Delaware’s grid, either. It had significant capacity for new distributed generation. The underlying issue was that Delaware’s interconnection procedures were based on twenty-year-old national best practices and had not been meaningfully updated in more than a decade. Those rules were written for a world of small kilowatt-scale rooftop systems that were few and far between. When megawatt‑scale community solar projects arrived by the hundreds, the framework simply could not carry the weight.

As the Delaware Public Service Commission (PSC) began investigating the backlog, efforts to resolve the problem unfolded largely through informal negotiations between Delmarva Power and representatives of community solar developers. Progress moved at a glacial pace and resulted in a proposal with incremental improvements. A resource-constrained PSC found itself facing a hard truth that many other states have had to confront: updating interconnection rules through traditional regulatory processes is slow, resource‑intensive, and inherently reactive.

A Structural Solution

Delaware’s legislature ultimately recognized that the failure of the community solar rollout was a predictable outcome of static interconnection regulation. While the state had authorized the development of new energy markets, the rules governing grid access didn’t enable those markets. Recognizing the limitations of interconnection regulation in its own state and similar patterns elsewhere, bill sponsors proposed to fundamentally shift interconnection regulation from a reactive process to a proactive one. This shift was made possible by leveraging a resource that once helped Delaware become a national leader in interconnection regulation: the Interstate Renewable Energy Council’s (IREC’s) Model Interconnection Procedures.  

Delaware state law had driven the adoption of Delaware’s interconnection standards in 2011, requiring them to adopt procedures that used IREC’s Model Interconnection Procedures and similar guidance from the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. This led to the creation of robust interconnection regulations in 2011 that were based on the 2005 edition of IREC’s model. Based on changes in technology and significant increases in market demand, IREC has updated its model four times since 2005. Delaware hasn’t revisited its interconnection procedures since initial adoption.

HB 269 addresses this deficiency in state law by requiring Delmarva to regularly update its interconnection standards by adopting IREC’s Model Interconnection Procedures within 12 months of publication of every new edition of the resource. Any proposed deviations from the IREC model require PSC approval. This approach is nearly identical to the regulation of state electrical code adoption in many states, where updates are based on the publication date of the National Fire Protection Association’s National Electrical Code.

Increasing Regulatory Capacity

In addition to requiring updates to interconnection regulation, Delaware’s new framework also addresses a structural barrier to effective interconnection regulation: regulatory capacity. State utility regulators across the country are understaffed and charged with the enormous responsibility of regulating various monopoly utilities on the public’s behalf.

They are expected to set customer rates, update and approve utility regulations, enforce the rules, adjudicate disputes, and innovate in response to policy and market demands. These activities often occur in formal proceedings that require significant regulatory staff time. As a result, updating interconnection procedures competes with other important regulatory activities.  

Delaware’s approach shifts this dynamic. Rather than reacting when something breaks, examining isolated portions of the regulations, and litigating technical considerations with parties that often have limited expertise on the basis of effective practices, HB 269 leverages IREC’s Model Interconnection Procedures as the baseline expectation for interconnection regulation in Delaware and requires parties to compel the PSC to approve any amendments. Not only will this reduce regulatory workload by shifting from proceedings where nearly every provision is argued point-for-point to one in which only those provisions that may have unique considerations in Delaware are, but it also creates more space for regulators to focus on oversight and accountability.

Delaware is Not Alone

The circumstances that resulted in Delaware’s new approach are not unique. For the past twenty years, interconnection policy in the U.S. has been a patchwork of reactive fixes. This has resulted in many states operating under interconnection procedures that have not been updated in five, ten, or even fifteen years. Many of those states now earn “C” or “D” grades for interconnection policy, not because their original rules were poorly designed, but because markets outpaced regulation. Community solar, energy storage, and flexible interconnection are now colliding with frameworks built for a different era.

Other states would benefit from similar approaches. For example, Florida, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and several other states haven’t meaningfully updated their interconnection procedures since initial adoption. Delaware, their regulations haven’t changed as larger and more sophisticated projects become more common. New Hampshire, which is in the process of completing a three-year effort to update its interconnection rules, is another strong candidate. After spending more than 1,000 hours of utility staff, regulatory staff, solar industry representatives, and nonprofit staff time to completely overhaul its archaic interconnection rules line-by-line and ultimately align them with the 2023 edition of the Model Interconnection Procedures, codifying updates would reduce the lihood of a future overhaul.

Delaware’s experience suggests that the clean energy transition does not just need faster markets and better technology. It needs governance that knows how to keep up. By leveraging a regulatory model that has long protected public safety in other contexts and applying it to DER interconnection, Delaware has reframed how we think about grid access. The question now is whether other states are willing to stop waiting for failure before they act.

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About the Author

Vaughan Woodruff (he/him) is a founder and principal of national consulting firm EquinoxDG, which provides strategic support on DER interconnection reform for clean energy advocates, DER companies, utilities, and regulators.

Formerly IREC’s Regulatory Vice President, Woodruff led the organization’s state and national efforts to streamline the interconnection of distributed energy resources and bolster grid modernization to achieve a 100% clean energy future. Prior to joining IREC, Vaughan founded and led a Maine-based, employee-owned B Corp that specialized in the design and installation of distributed energy resources, including solar, energy storage, EV charging equipment, and heat pumps.