Sussex council doesn’t understand how electric grid works

On Dec. 17, Sussex County Council voted to deny the construction of an electrical substation for US Wind’s offshore wind project. This decision was made despite the substation site being zoned for heavy industrial use, its location near an existing substation, and a unanimous vote recommending approval from the planning & zoning commission. Council raised concerns that the project’s benefits – and the power it generates – would flow to Maryland rather than Sussex County. This concern, however, highlights a misunderstanding of how the electric grid works.

Large power plants generate electricity, which then travels through high-capacity cables to a substation. The substation’s job is to adjust the electricity’s voltage so it can safely join the power grid – a huge network of interconnected lines that transmits power wherever it’s needed.

Almost all power plants – from the Indian River coal plant to your neighbor’s rooftop solar panels – feed into this shared grid. Once electricity enters, it flows to the nearest demands, like your house or the school down the street. The power from one source mixes with others, and there’s no way to distinguish electricity based on where it is generated. This means the wind farm’s electricity will contribute to powering homes and businesses throughout Sussex County, Delmarva and beyond. There are no dedicated lines specifically directing wind energy to the Maryland-Delaware border.

However, US Wind would invest millions to upgrade power lines in our region, enhancing the grid’s capacity to handle more electricity. These upgrades will avoid transmission bottlenecks and help keep power prices down – which is important as power demand is going up. With old power plants retiring and electricity demand surging from data centers and manufacturing growth, we face power reliability issues if new power plants and grid upgrades are not constructed quickly.

Denying this important source of new renewable energy could lead to higher energy costs, posing challenges to the broader economy. But what about the cost of building the wind farm? Sussex County residents would not pay.  The financial agreements for the wind farm are between US Wind and the State of Maryland, meaning construction costs would not appear on power bills of Delaware residents.

In fact, the opposite is the case. US Wind has developed a draft agreement with the State of Delaware to provide 150,000 renewable energy credits annually – valued at $76 million over the life of the project – that will help our electric utilities meet clean energy goals and act to keep customer power prices down.

The forthcoming appeal from US Wind will very likely reverse council’s decision and allow the construction of a much-needed new source of renewable energy for Sussex and the region.