California may boast more days of sunshine than just about every other state, but the East Coast is rapidly taking over in the race to turn all that sunshine into clean, affordable energy. New Jersey recently overtook the Golden State as the number one producer of solar energy in the nation, and recent reports show that Delaware is quickly climbing the ranks as well.

Experts say this growth is owed in part to the state’s attractive solar incentives which are just one element of its larger Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS). This standard, first created in 2005, mandates certain percentages of the state’s total electricity production that must come from renewable sources.

In 2005, Delaware’s RPS demanded that 10 percent of the state’s total electricity come from renewable sources by 2025. In 2007 the renewable energy minimum was raised to 20 percent, and with approximately 2 percent coming directly from solar. Standards were raised again in 2010 to the current levels of 25 percent and 3.5 percent, respectively. As pointed out in this review, 3.5 percent may not sound like a lot, but when you consider how much energy the millions of residents here consume (more than 12 billion kilowatt-hours per year), it adds up to a lot.

Of course, utilities can’t be expected to produce all that solar energy alone, so Delaware has introduced attractive incentives for residential and commercial customers who want to produce their own power. Nearly every utility customer in the state qualifies for rebates totaling up to $15,000 off a solar array.

Delaware’s aggressive RPS has also given birth to a profitable Solar Renewable Energy Credit (SREC) market, Through this program, those who install solar systems on their home or business can sell the resulting energy back to utility companies for cold hard cash. Since utilities would rather purchase these SRECs than pay the high fines imposed for not meeting renewable energy goals, this creates a nice closed loop for solar panel owners, and allows Delaware to boast one of the shortest payback timeframes in the nation for residential solar power systems.

 Photo credit: Andreas Demmelbauer/Flickr