From WHYY: Delaware, NJ Democrats blast Trump officials for using shutdown to cut clean energy funding

A Rutgers University agrivoltaics program was initially awarded $1.6 million. But DOE nixed $602,180 of that, Schoolman said. One of their partners was Delaware State University, a historically Black university DSU used its part of the grant to do outreach activities and had planned to build its own experimental research site.  DSU’s funding was cut by $67,000

According to the Department of Energy’s list of project terminations, the University of Delaware and  Chemours Compan also lost funding.

Delaware Democratic Congresswoman Sarah McBride said in a statement that the termination of these projects is a political ploy that will raise energy costs 

“These are mobster tactics — the Trump administration is illegally slashing programs during this government shutdown in an attempt to force Democrats to vote for their cuts to health care and other lifesaving services,” she said. “I will not be intimidated into giving this president a blank check to dismantle the very programs families rely on.”

But through DOE contract numbers and news releases, WHYY News identified several of the likely affected projects.

Chemours, a chemical company headquartered in Wilmington, was given $60 million in 2024 for projects related to clean hydrogen energy production. The House Appropriations list of projects shows the company’s funding was cut by $10 million.

The University of Delaware suffered a total loss of $6.5 million for two projects, one was for developing large offshore wind blade spar caps and the other was related to using artificial intelligence to manufacture composite materials for products like cars and airplanes. 

Despite slashing funds for two hydrogen hubs on the west coast, the Philadelphia region’s MACH2 clean energy hub, which includes a number of projects in Delaware, was spared.