Almost half its generation was from old, very expensive oil-fired plants, resulting in prices about 22 cents per kilowatt hour, among the highest in the U.S. Prior to Maria, Puerto Rico had one of the largest public power authorities in the U.S., known as PREPA, serving a population of 3.4 million people from 31 power plants, 293 substations and 32,000 miles of wire. There is a path forward, but it will not be easy. The answer to these questions, from my perspective having worked with and researched the power industry for four decades, has little to do with technologies and everything to do with some nearly insurmountable financial and governance challenges. Yet more than five weeks after the storm, only about 40 percent of the grid has been rebuilt, and service remains unreliable even where power is restored.Īs the recovery process inches its way forward, the questions many are asking go like this: Why are we rebuilding the grid to be the same as it was before the storm? Can’t we use this as an opportunity to create a more modern, resilient, renewable power system? Isn’t this the perfect opportunity for an upgrade? This shameful outcome should have been avoided with strong, swift federal leadership. When hospitals and other critical users could not get backup power and water supplies ran low, an extended outage became a humanitarian crisis that has yet to be resolved. Power was knocked out throughout the island, with an estimated 80 percent of its transmission and distribution wires incapacitated. ![]() In addition to its many other devastating human consequences, Hurricane Maria left the island of Puerto Rico with its power grid in ruins. Now they have a chance to rebuild it to something better and greener.This piece originally appeared on The Conversation. The electric grid in Puerto Rico was unreliable before the hurricane. ![]() According to Inside Climate News, a draft of the integrated resource plan should be released by the end of the month. He and Elon musk connected on Twitter directly about rebuilding the electrical grid with independent solar and battery systems.Įven if the legislation does not pass, PREPA is working on its own plan that has a greater emphasis on renewables. Puerto Rico's governor, Ricardo Rosselló, has expressed his support of the proposal. The storm “created broad consensus across the political spectrum,” Rua-Jovet told FastCompany. The system worked, and this helped boost the support for microgrids and renewable energy. “People were hurled back from the first world to the third world in terms of energy,” he said.Īfter the hurricane, solar companies like SunRun, Sonnen, and Tesla installed small microgrids (solar panels and batteries) at hospitals and fire stations where electrical power was essential. Rua-Jovet lives in San Juan and now works as director of public policy in Puerto Rico for SunRun, a solar power company that entered the market there this year because of the demand for solar power and battery storage systems. “It changed everything,” Javier Rua-Jovet told FastCompany. The island has abundant sunshine and wind, so the shift to these renewables is very compelling. Importing fuel to Puerto Rico is expensive, and the cost of electricity is twice as much as on the mainland. The state-owned electrical grid was unreliable and prone to power failures, and PREPA declared bankruptcy in 2017 even before Hurricanes Irma and Maria struck the island. ![]() ![]() A request to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development for $100 million to go to solar power is still pending.Įven before the storm, there were clear arguments for renewables. Puerto Rico hopes that some disaster funding may help homeowners buy solar panels. The new bill also supports people who can install their own solar panels and sell excess power to the grid. The territory currently provides 62 percent of its electricity by burning coal and oil according to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), and only four percent is from renewables. The proposed legislation calls for ending coal power generation by 2028 and requires all oil-fired power plants to convert to dual-fuel capacity within five years. As Puerto Rico rebuilds from Hurricane Maria, an ambitious clean energy bill was passed by the Senate (it still must be voted on by the House) that will shift the island to 100 percent renewable energy.
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