The Delmarva Corrugated Packaging (DCP) plant in Dover is set to receive $1 million in federal funding to support one of the state’s largest rooftop solar panel installations.
DCP’s Kent County plant has been in operation since December 2021. CEO Dennis D. Mehiel says the company has employed about 160 people while putting environmental innovation at the forefront of its production.
“We were thinking about sustainability even before we broke ground and that was kind of the guiding principle for the facility we built. The solar program is just an extension of that,” Mehiel said.
The million dollars from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Energy for America program will help the facility install 3,700 solar panels on its roofs.
The project is expected to generate about a third of its electricity from solar power, and it is estimated that the system will extract enough power from the local grid to supply 250 homes.
Mehiel says they hope to begin installation by the end of 2024 and expect the solar panels to be operational by early 2025.
DCP’s plant has already been built to be 30 percent more energy efficient than required, and Mehiel says he hopes to continue to expand these climate-friendly initiatives.
In addition to the environmental efforts, Mehiel is proud of the economic growth the plant has brought to Kent County since it opened in 2021.
“We currently employ over 100 people at the plant and pay above-average wages. We are unionized and we’re happy about that. So things have gone according to plan as we expected the growth of the workforce and of course the business that we do at the plant that supports those jobs.”
Mehiel is also excited about DCP’s partnership with Autism Delaware, where the companies donated $10,000 in June to support participation in social services for families with autism.
