Puerto Rico’s power grid does not have a good record when it comes to weathering powerful storms. Many on the island would like to develop a more decentralized grid powered mostly by the sun.
SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Puerto Rico’s electric power grid does not have a great track record when it comes to weathering powerful storms. Last year, Hurricane Fiona knocked out electricity for many across the island. And just six years ago, Hurricane Maria left large parts of Puerto Rico without power for months. That explains why many on the island favor building a decentralized grid, one that is more stable and more resilient and powered mostly by the sun. Our colleagues at Here & Now sent reporter Chris Bentley to look into this recently, and here’s the story.
CHRIS BENTLEY, BYLINE: You can find what some people in Puerto Rico see as the future of the electric grid here in the mountains north of Ponce, where the Rio Cidra runs past the town square in Adjuntas. Even as the sun sinks behind the mountains, 14 businesses and two apartment buildings along the central plaza are running on solar power, thanks to two banks of batteries and some computers that orchestrate the flow of electricity among them. That is a microgrid – a self-reliant mini-utility run independently of the islandwide grid. Tucked behind a furniture store and a defunct gas station, there is a row of big, gray boxes, like industrial refrigerators. These are the guts of the Adjuntas microgrid.
CYNTHIA ARELLANO: And these guys are built for all conditions. They’re built for strong winds. They’re built for fire suppressant, just kind of inside the system. Rain, shine – they’re built for kind of these Puerto Rico hurricane conditions.
BENTLEY: Yeah. And in this case, they don’t mind a bunch of lizards running all over them.
ARELLANO: No. No, they’re used to that, and they’re very happy. Yeah.
BENTLEY: Cynthia Arellano is project manager for the Honnold Foundation, a…
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