Over 40 organizations, business and churches have asked Congress to approve $5 billion in needed spending to strengthen Puerto Rico’s energy grid. They have sent a letter that asks for funding to update Puerto Rico’s outdated energy system.
“It has been five years since Hurricane María and we still suffer from frequent blackouts,” said David Ortiz, Solar United Neighbors Puerto Rico program director. “It’s time to fix this problem. Solar energy and battery storage is the solution. It would save Congress billions of dollars in the future, every time we get hit by a storm.”
Puerto Rico’s energy grid remains poorly managed, centralized and vulnerable to catastrophic failure when major storms hit. The system relies on expensive fossil fuel plants and aging transmission lines.
When this system fails, it can leave communities without electricity for weeks at a time. Previous funding efforts have focused on rebuilding existing infrastructure. This has kept the same vulnerable system in place.
Solar and storage systems withstand storms and provide continuous electricity. This is why these groups have asked Congress to fund a new, better electric system. The money in the request would pay for rooftop solar and battery storage systems to benefit low-income and vulnerable households. It would also fund solar and storage for non-profit organizations and municipalities. These larger systems would serve as part of community resiliency projects.
“Puerto Ricans from all walks of life want a solution to this life-threatening energy crisis,” Ortiz said. “We hope Congress decides to support this bill.”
News item from Solar United Neighbors
““It has been five years since Hurricane María and we still suffer from frequent blackouts,” said David Ortiz, Solar United Neighbors Puerto Rico Program Director. “It’s time to fix this problem. Solar energy and battery storage is the solution. It would save Congress billions of dollars in the future, everytime we get hit by a storm.””
It depends on whose “article” one has come acrossed over the years since Maria destroyed the incompetently maintained electric grid in 2017. It was said Puerto Rico had $50 billion dollars in relief aid “available” after Maria, but only something like $15 billion was used. Other articles had the relief funds at up to $91 billion dollars and if this was true, [every] home on Puerto Rico could have an 8.5kWp solar PV array and a 30kWh smart ESS installed for about $61 billion total. One might find taking an entire town and installing say 8MWp solar PV system and create a microgrid with 48MWh energy storage would allow many distributed microgrids to serve the citizens in a more cost effective manner. This type of utility scale microgrid could well reap the rewards of economies of scale over singular residential homes microgrids.
Why does it have to be so hard?