Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico’s power system hard enough that, for awhile, 100% of grid power services were cut off. Not a single utility customer was receiving power from the grid. That bleak reality doesn’t mean that 100 percent of Puerto Ricans (or, well, crypto buds avoiding taxes by residing in Puerto Rico) were without power. Many — individuals, businesses, and communities (community centers) — have generators, chugging away to provide electricity in the face of horrid normal service outages and in the face of major disasters. Those generators rely, of course, on diesel which is difficult to get amid and after a disaster (with shortages already reported in Puerto Rico post Fiona).
Increasingly, however, renewable energy has been making its mark. Renewables, of course, don’t eat up logistics and don’t, amid an emergency, require shelling out desperately needed cash to fuel them. While, regrettably, distributed renewables were made the centerpiece of Federal assistance post-Maria and haven’t had strong support from PR’s electric utility (which continues to push for large gas-fired plants).
Even without that support, there are over 40,000 distributed solar systems are connected to the grid, up over 8x since before Hurricane Maria, and there are untold additional set-ups that aren’t grid connected. Per a recent IEEFA report, “Households have installed more than 250 megawatts (MW) of distributed rooftop solar since September 2017.” These are providing near 4% of Puerto Rico’s electrical generation–more than utility-scale solar.
Increasingly, these aren’t just solar panels but also have storage and power management to foster reduced power usages in the face of grid collapse (such as amid Fiona) and failures (which, sigh, has been happening all too often even amid nice weather).
And, these systems have been working.
In the southeastern coastal city of Salinas, which was in the center of Fiona’s path and likely saw some of the storm’s worst damage, environmental attorney Ruth Santiago said her solar system also kept her lights on throughout the storm. “That’s why I’m charging my phone and making lunch and that kind of thing, but no one else has power,” she told me, apologizing as the beep of a timer chirped in the background.
“Sorry,” she said, “that was just my oven going off.”
The same goes for a gas station in Utuado, a pharmacy in Patillas and a community center in Arecibo. All of them had installed solar panels and battery storage this summer and none lost power during the storm
And, quite literally saving lives. Consider this fire station:
in the coastal city of Guánica, the local fire station managed to keep its lights and critical communications systems running during the storm thanks to a system of 52 solar panels and four Tesla Powerwall batteries. …
the Guánica fire department had been able to receive four emergency calls as Fiona lashed the island’s southern coast. During previous events such as Hurricane Maria and a 2020 earthquake — before the fire station had its solar-plus-battery system — firefighters were unable to receive calls over the radio during outages and instead had to rely on people yelling for help.
“The solar system is working beautifully! We did not lose power all throughout the hurricane.”
What a contrast that is to grid-connected facilities and to those reliant on expensive to run, loud, and fuel logistics dependent generators.
Now, the reality that solar is keeping the lights on for 100,000s of Puerto RIcans is a reality that too few of their fellow citizens around the country are aware of. This CBS story is a rare exception where (roughly at 5:45 in the video) solar power is discussed in terms of not just how it can but how it is delivering clean, affordable, reliable and resilient power for Puerto Ricans today and how it can do so for even more tomorrow.
Puerto Ricans support solar and other moves toward greater resiliency. It is past time for their fellow citizens, notably the Federal government (and, especially, FEMA), to help them achieve this.
Related: Hurricane Fiona and the imperative of Disaster 4R principles for Puerto Rico (and beyond).