Puerto Rico

Land is scarce but water is abundant for the Caribbean’s 700 islands. Solar economy professor Christian Breyer tells pv magazine that the region’s archipelagic makeup is not a drawback but a benefit for renewable energy generation, with the ocean potentially serving as the area’s floating solar PV backbone.

Luma Energy supports more than 54,000 customer connections in its 21 months as grid operator.

The US government has introduced a new funding package to support residential solar and storage projects in Puerto Rico, followed by resilience solutions such as microgrids, community solar, and grid modernization.

Rapidly deploying 5.2 GW of planned solar and storage in Puerto Rico, a possibility raised in a report by six national laboratories, would require an improvement in the Puerto Rico utility’s practices. A mandated procurement process has suffered delays at many steps.

Puerto Rico’s latest procurement exercise is the second round of a tender scheme designed to allocate 3.75 GW of renewablesd capacity and 1.5 GW of storage.

US provider EnerVenue will provide its nickel-hydrogen batteries for large scale renewable and storage applications to Sonnell Power Solutions. The devices will add resiliency to the island’s industrial sector, which has suffered outages and inconsistencies in the years since Hurricane Maria.

Puerto Rico has 40GW of solar potential, said national lab staff in a webinar. The 100% study will begin by modeling the renewables milestones set by Puerto Rico law.

Distributed solar and storage should be the focus for $9.6 billion in FEMA funds allocated for Puerto Rico’s grid reconstruction, says a new report based on independent analysis.

The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority has been ordered to procure a total of 3.75 GW of renewables and 1.5 GW of energy storage.

Puerto Rican regulators have ordered PREPA to procure solar and storage, but the utility’s board chairman says that the island’s grid can support only a fraction of the mandated amount.