The “energy insurrection” with which they want to end the desperate blackouts in Puerto Rico
Miguelina Ramos at home.
Miguelina Ramos lives in a concrete shack on the slopes of El Hoyo, an almost forgotten sector of only 26 familiesin the municipality of Adjuntas, far from the impressive Caribbean beaches that make the US territory famous.
To get to his house, visitors must navigate winding roads, park in a ditch, and then walk through the brush, past chickens and dozing cats.
Miguelina has lung problems that make her need constant access to a ventilator. Until recently, the 57-year-old lived in constant fear of power outages.
Blackouts have become routine in Puerto Rico since hurricanes swept through the island in 2017.
In March, a community organization installed solar panels on your tin roof. This meant that last month when a blackout engulfed the island’s 3.2 million inhabitants, Miguelina, unlike almost everyone else, never lost her power.
image source, Getty Images
The mountains around Adjuntas were devastated after Hurricane Maria in 2017.
Its solar system was installed by the Casa Pueblo charity, which has been pushing since the hurricanes to expand rooftop solar power across the island to offer a cheaper and more reliable source of power.
But the donation-funded work is moving slowly in the face of soaring demand as people desperately try to find a solution to the blackouts that continue to plague the island’s fragile power grid.
Miguelina is one of only a dozen families selected from hundreds of applications in the most recent round of work.
Washington DC has set aside more than US$10 billion for Puerto Rico, an unprecedented opportunity.
‘We could be a model’
Installing a solar system, complete with battery backup, can cost tens of thousands of dollars in Puerto Rico, a prohibitive sum for most people on the island, where the median income is $21,000.
But after two hurricanes and a major earthquake shattered the island’s power grid, the US government’s disaster agency set aside a relief package of about $10 billion, an unprecedented amount.
Activists on the island say this is a golden opportunity to dramatically expand rooftop solar, while transforming a dysfunctional system into a prototype of the grids of the future.
“I see a lot of applicability for this elsewhere [en otros estados de EE.UU.]If we could do this here,” says environmental attorney Ruth Santiago, who is also on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. “We could definitely be a model of rapid transformation of an electrical grid,” she adds.
But the island, which currently gets just 3% of its electricity from renewable sources, is a reminder that even with money available, using it to achieve a future less reliant on fossil fuels is not a sure thing.
Since the funds were released almost two years ago, almost nothing has been spent.
Despite widespread consensus on the need to adopt more renewable energy sources, and a law mandating the transition, advocates say reconstruction plans prioritize reducing reliance on coal by increasing natural gas imports, rather than to adopt renewable energies as a cheaper and more reliable alternative.
“From an environmental standpoint, from a financial standpoint, from a fiscal standpoint, from an economic standpoint, probably even from a legal standpoint, they should be investing in renewable energy as the predominant resource. And they’re not,” says Tom Sanzillo, director of financial analysis at the Institute for Economics. Energy and Financial Analysis.
It is an exasperating situation for Puerto Ricans. “That they fix the system they have, that really doesn’t help us,” adds Miguelina. “Putting solar panels for everyone is much better.”
Only 3% of the electricity in Puerto Rico comes from renewable sources, the goal is 40%.
strategy for the future
LUMA Energy is the private company that took over the management of a large part of Puerto Rico’s electrical system last year. It does not operate power plants, but handles transmission, distribution and customer complaints, among other things.
Since June, it has connected more than 18,000 rooftop solar systems for homes and created a map to make it easier for renewable energy companies to connect to the grid.
However, company boss Wayne Stensby says the island cannot simply migrate to solar power without making the system it already has more reliable, which means investments in the traditional grid.
“That idea of a more decentralized grid, with more renewable energy, is part of the future here, for sure,” he says. “That does not stop you from needing a solid and robust electrical system, so that it can reliably transmit energy throughout Puerto Rico and integrate those resources effectively.”
Stensby started work in 2020 after the previous utility, PREPA, filed for bankruptcy. Much of his work has been crisis management: resolving blackouts and routing staff past blockades created by the former utility’s union, while ensuring equipment doesn’t rot in roofless warehouses. .
But there is little patience for this among the population, especially as utility bills, already some of the highest in the US, continue to rise.
“Every day it goes up. It’s an incredible assault on people,” says José Aníbal González, a 78-year-old former teacher, who lost power for days in the recent blackout. “They are bleeding us dry.”
image source, Getty Images
A demonstration against LUMA Energy.
Who is guilty?
“I think there’s a blame game [sobre] who is responsible”, says Jenniffer González-Colón, who represents the US territory in Washington DC “From my perspective, nothing has happened and that is something that frustrates, especially when you made Congress approve a lot of funds for the island”.
While she mainly blames LUMA and PREPA for the inaction – neither company submitted any substantial spending proposals to the government until March – her views on rebuilding the grid echo Stensby’s.
González-Colón supports renewable energy, but says the island, especially its manufacturing sector, urgently needs reliable electricity.
“We have to keep in mind that 45% of our economy is pharmaceuticals, medical device manufacturing that requires stable and reliable power 24 hours a day, seven days a week, both on-peak and off-peak,” He says. “That means you can’t just use batteries. You need to have a mix.”
Arturo Massol Deya says that the people of the island have run out of patience with the authorities to solve the continuous power cuts.
Meanwhile, the people of the island are taking matters into their own hands.
“The transformation, what we call, an energy insurrection, a bottom-up approach to transforming our energy landscape is happening,” says Arturo Massol-Deya of Casa Pueblo.
Beyond Miguelina in Adjuntas, where the organization is based, solar panels now illuminate the city’s utility poles and cover the roofs of hundreds of houses.
The group’s most ambitious project to date, a microgrid connecting 20 businesses and a church around the main square, will be completed this summer.
Massol-Deya says that when Casa Pueblo installed the first solar panels in 1999, they were received as little more than a curiosity. But the hurricanes were a turning point.
Now it’s just a matter of getting the rest of the island on board.
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