Puerto Rico’s Clean Energy Future
Last week, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm made her third visit to Puerto Rico, focusing much needed attention on the island’s ailing electric grid. As a former Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration, I thought it was worth using the Secretary’s visit as an opportunity to look back at how the island’s grid challenges have evolved over the last few years as a guide to point us to a more successful future.
Renewable energy potential in Puerto Rico significantly exceeds total energy demand now and through 2050
In September 2017, Hurricanes Irma and Maria caused most of Puerto Rico’s electrical grid to collapse, leading to one of the longest blackouts in U.S. history. Residents in some parts of the island were without electricity for almost a year, and critical services for the 3.2 million U.S. citizens who call the island home also experienced severe disruptions for extremely long periods of time. Congress responded quickly — appropriating $9.5 billion in FEMA funding to restore the grid, with another $1.9 billion in U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funds to be used for enhanced or improved electrical power systems.
The local government on the island also saw the damage and devastation caused by Hurricanes Irma and Maria as a wake-up call. In 2019, citing climate change and the effects of natural disasters on the stability of the island’s grid as one of the reasons, the Puerto Rico legislature passed the Puerto Rico Energy Public Policy Act (Act 17), setting a goal for the island to meet 100% of its electricity needs with renewable energy by 2050.
Yet still, energy system recovery, efforts to increase resilience, and progress toward renewable energy targets have been slow for the island. These delays mean power disruptions continue - whether caused by nature or manmade.
In September 2022, five years after Hurricanes Irma and Maria, disaster struck again as Hurricane Fiona struck the island, again knocking out 100% of the grid for as long as four weeks in parts of Puerto Rico. Nearly 1.5 million customers on the island lost power, some of which were without power for nearly a month. Hundreds of thousands also lost access to water services. And while Hurricane Fiona was one of the first significant storms to hit the island since Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico is no stranger to power outages. Last April, the entire island lost grid power for three days after an aging electric breaker caught fire on the southern coast. To say that residents are frustrated by the lack of progress being made on rebuilding the grid is an understatement. And adding to that frustration is the fact that Puerto Ricans continue to pay over double the price for electricity compared with those living in the mainland United States. Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows that residential customers in Puerto Rico pay 33.47 cents per kWh on average, while the U.S. average is around 16 cents per kWh. Moreover, Puerto Rico has the lowest GDP per capita and the highest poverty rate in the United States.
The need for Puerto Rico to have a grid that is both reliable and resilient to the effects of climate change is critical. As Secretary Granholm recently said, “for far too long, Puerto Ricans have lived with an outdated electric system where needless obstacles and long delays have prevented critical improvements”, which is why she and other members of the Biden Administration are working hard to put those federal dollars mentioned above to work.
The destruction and suffering caused by Hurricane Fiona motivated the Biden Administration in October of last year to create the Puerto Rico Grid Modernization and Recovery Team to work across the federal and local governments to identify and overcome impediments to rapid infrastructure deployment, while coordinating technical assistance and deploying federal funding in an expeditious and strategic manner.
That’s not all. In the FY23 Omnibus Appropriations bill passed at the end of last year, Puerto Rico received $1 billion to help “improve the resilience of the Puerto Rican electric grid, including grants for low and moderate income households and households that include individuals with disabilities for the purchase and installation of renewable energy, energy storage, and other grid technologies.” While both the Administration and some Members of Congress were advocating for a larger appropriation to start-up this initiative, the direct earmark of appropriations for a grant program to permit the people of Puerto Rico to make these upgrades to their energy source will hopefully serve as an impetus to help the island reach its renewable energy goals. These newly appropriated funds were a central focus of Secretary Granholm’s visit as she met with vulnerable communities in Loíza, Vieques, Culebra, and Salinas to hear directly from residents as to how these funds can be used to meet their daily energy needs.
In the five years since Hurricane Maria, those residents and businesses who have been able to invest in solar power have been able to keep the lights on during blackouts – whether those blackouts are caused by extreme weather or overload to the grid. It’s high time we extend those renewable resources to the whole island.
And now we have a potential roadmap on how the island might get there. On January 23, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released a report, which includes key recommendations on how Puerto Rico can transition away from imported fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources, and make electricity on the island more affordable. This report, the first annual deliverable of an initiative called the Puerto Rico Grid Resilience and Transitions to 100% Renewable Energy Study (PR100), provides considerations that can inform potential funding and implementation decisions by key federal and local agencies and stakeholders. I am proud to be a member of the Puerto Rico Energy Recovery and Resilience Advisory Group (“Advisory Group”), which provided feedback to the DOE team working on this study.
Key takeaways from the PR100 study include:
Renewable energy potential in Puerto Rico significantly exceeds total energy demand now and through 2050;
Distributed energy resources and alternative system configurations (e.g., community solar, agro-voltaics) could ensure Puerto Rico meets its renewable energy targets while preserving agricultural land and protected areas;
Significant additional generation capacity is needed immediately to improve reliability;
Smaller renewable resources spread across the power system could recover faster from disruptive events than the current system, which consists of fewer and larger power plants;
Prioritizing stakeholder input and interagency coordination is key to overcome past challenges;
The island will need to upgrade both its distribution and transmission systems, in particular to accommodate the development of offshore wind resources; and
Meeting energy demand by expanding the use of distributed energy resources can help keep the lights on during hurricanes, earthquakes and other disasters.
The time to transform Puerto Rico’s outdated and unreliable grid to one powered by renewable energy sources has come. As the preliminary PR100 report shows, Puerto Rico has the potential to reach 100% renewable energy on schedule as required by local law. Utilizing the island’s natural resources – including the nearly 3,000 hours of sunlight Puerto Rico receives each year – makes sense from both an economic standpoint and a climate stewardship standpoint.
I look forward to continuing to work with DOE’s Advisory Group to help the island take advantage of the federal resources available to it to develop a grid powered 100% by renewable energy. Our fellow citizens deserve nothing less after the prices and pain they’ve endured.
Jennifer currently serves on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Puerto Rico Energy System Recovery and Resilience Advisory Group. She is also a member of the Board of Directors for Invest Puerto Rico. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration (PRFAA).
