Dive Brief:
- Installation of hundreds of residential photo voltaic+storage methods backed by US Department of Energy funding has begun in Puerto Rico, a senior company official stated Monday. The Solar Access Program, funded by means of the Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund, goals to encourage the set up of as much as 40,000 methods for low-income households going through continual energy outages. electrical energy or have a medical situation or incapacity that will depend on electrical energy.
- Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm will go to Puerto Rico Wednesday and Thursday to go to owners who’ve acquired the primary installations, and to make an announcement on Biden’s mountain vitality investments, the company stated.
- The DOE is monitoring energy outages in Puerto Rico, significantly a blackout that left greater than 340,000 clients at nighttime throughout a June warmth wave, the senior official stated. “The restoration and modernization of Puerto Rico’s grid is a high precedence for this administration, and the DOE will proceed to behave with the urgency Puerto Ricans deserve,” they stated.
Dive Insights:
It’s been seven years since Hurricane Maria destroyed Puerto Rico’s vitality system, requiring an entire rebuild and resulting in billions in Federal Emergency Management Agency venture funding and a plan to modernize and decarbonize the island’s vitality system.
LUMA Energy, which operates Puerto Rico’s electrical grid, stated it has made vital enhancements since taking on operations by means of a public-private partnership in 2021, together with putting in extra strong on utility poles, modernizing substations, clearing hazardous vegetation and deploying automation units.
Despite the efforts, “the vitality system stays weak in comparison with different fashionable methods,” Juan Saca, president and CEO of LUMA, stated in an announcement about preparations for Hurricane Beryl this month.
The DOE doesn’t have the authority to answer energy outages that haven’t been declared a nationwide emergency, however the company is working towards long-term options, company officers stated.
The DOE’s Solar Access Program has acquired hundreds of functions from Puerto Ricans and the company says it expects to deploy greater than 3,000 residential methods by the top of the yr, officers stated. There is zero upfront price, though households receiving a system could also be chargeable for a month-to-month upkeep price between $10 and $45.
Puerto Rico may meet 100% of its projected electrical energy wants with renewable vitality by 2050, in compliance with the territory’s Act 17 legislation, the company concluded in a two-year research printed in February. In the close to time period, the research discovered that about 400 MW of latest capability is required to strengthen the island’s electrical grid and handle present technology shortfalls. Both utility-scale and distributed renewable assets are wanted, together with vital quantities of vitality storage, the report says.
The DOE is “working immediately with renewable vitality builders” collaborating within the island’s renewable vitality procurement course of to make use of the infrastructure reinvestment class of the Title 17 clear vitality financing program so “they’ll entry federally-backed loans to finance the brand new utility-scale technology tasks in order that we will improve the renewable technology capability in Puerto Rico and produce extra stability to the grid in Puerto Rico,” the senior official of the company stated.
