[News] The Grassroots Movement That Built Puerto Rico’s First Community-Owned Microgrid

[Anti-Imperialist News]

nextcity.org
<https://nextcity.org/features/grassroots-movement-puerto-ricos-first-community-owned-solar-microgrid>
The Grassroots Movement That Built Puerto Rico’s First Community-Owned
Microgrid

Story by Katherine Rapin
<https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/author/katherine-rapin> - Published on Jun
10, 2023
------------------------------
[image: image.png]

For two weeks after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017, Lucy’s
Pizza was the only restaurant open in the central mountain town of
Adjuntas. The town’s 18,000 residents, like those on the rest of the
island, were entirely without electricity.

“No one has power, you can’t get gas, it’s difficult to make food, so
everyone came here to eat,” says owner Gustavo Irizarry. “The line,” he
gestured down the block along the town’s central plaza, “endless.”

Using a diesel generator, Lucy’s was running at about 75% capacity. The
generator was loud, emitted dangerous fumes and wasn’t always reliable.
Irizarry was often up in the middle of the night to restart the generator
because of the risk of losing power to the refrigerators. He didn’t want
ingredients to spoil.

Now, nearly six years later, Irizarry is poised to generate his own energy
from the sun. He’s one of 14 merchants in downtown Adjuntas who invested in
the island’s first community-owned solar microgrids — expected to go live
before the height of hurricane season this summer.

“After Maria, we saw the vulnerability and the necessity to have an
electric system that truly works,” Irizarry says. “To have better,
alternative power, to be able to live.”

The microgrid project is the latest effort in a two decades-long grassroots
movement to build energy security in Puerto Rico in the form of solar power.

Irizarry had spent $15,000 on diesel in the six months he was without power
after Maria. When the grid finally came back on, the cost of energy kept
rising — electric bills were sucking up 30% of Lucy’s operating expenses.
Meanwhile, a longstanding energy independence initiative was paying
dividends while providing reliable power in his own backyard.

A few blocks from the pizza shop, dozens of Adjunteños gathered at another
community refuge — this one powered by renewable energy. Environmental
nonprofit Casa Pueblo <https://casapueblo.org/> installed their first solar
panels in 1999 and retrofitted the system to be completely off-grid just
months before the hurricane. Locals came to charge phones, run dialysis
machines, and store medications in the center’s refrigerators. One neighbor
came daily to administer her son’s asthma treatment.

Founded in 1980, Casa Pueblo is well known across the island and among the
diaspora, who were sending aid, trying, in part, to make up for the
inadequate federal response
<https://nexusmedianews.com/when-the-government-fails-after-natural-disasters-this-is-who-picks-up-the-cost-a921e92814ff/>
after the hurricane. Across the island, groups like the Casa Pueblo have
relied on deep roots in the community to create local buy-in and lead an
equitable transition to energy security.

“We told people, we don’t want money — send us solar lamps,” says Arturo
Massol Deyá, who along with his father
<https://www.goldmanprize.org/blog/prize-winners-today-how-alexis-massol-is-creating-a-community-based-environmental-revolution-in-puerto-rico/>
leads Casa Pueblo’s efforts in Adjuntas. For practical reasons, yes, and
because he saw an opportunity to educate the community about solar energy.

And it worked. Locals started looking to Casa Pueblo for solutions,
including business owners like Irizarry.
A community-owned solution

Spread across the roofs of seven buildings in town, the island’s first
community-owned solar microgrid will be able to power businesses that
provide essential services for the community: a pharmacy, a hardware store,
a bakery and Irizarry’s pizza shop, among others.

The microgrids – comprising two half-megawatt battery storage systems
connected to 700 solar panels – will be connected to the central grid. In
the case of an outage, they can “island,”
<https://www.energy.gov/femp/articles/islanding-microgrid> relying on their
own generation and storage.

As a co-owner of the new solar microgrid, Lucy’s Pizza owner Gustavo
Irizarry expects to save enough money on energy bills annually to hire two
additional employees. (Photo by Katherine Rapin)

The systems will enable businesses to be energy oases during prolonged
outages and pay — to the nonprofit the owners formed — a lower rate for
energy year-round. Proceeds will be invested in solar projects for the
community, starting with the homes of the most vulnerable residents.

The aim: building resilience in the face of increasing climate impacts,
while generating wealth across Adjuntas.

The $2 million project was led by Casa Pueblo <https://casapueblo.org/> in
partnership with the solar-energy focused Honnold Foundation
<https://www.honnoldfoundation.org/> and local business owners, and with
the support of University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez, among others.

It’s the latest effort in Casa Pueblo’s “Energy Insurrection
<https://theintercept.com/2020/02/09/puerto-rico-energy-electricity-solar-natural-gas/>,”
a movement to become an entirely solar-powered town and model energy
resilience for communities across Puerto Rico.

“The microgrid is a major step in taking Puerto Rico from the vulnerability
of the centralized fossil fuel system to the aspiration that I think we
share in Puerto Rico,” says Arturo Massol Deyá. “To use local fuels and
generate power at the point of consumption, where it’s needed.”

As storm-induced outages become more frequent, local generation and storage
have become more critical, and not only on islands. The United States’ 700
microgrids <https://doe.icfwebservices.com/microgrid>, more than half of
which were built since 2015, already provide reliable power for places like
hospitals, schools and airports. By 2035, the Department of Energy expects
<https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2022-09/4-Microgrids%20as%20a%20Building%20Block%20for%20Future%20Grids.pdf>
microgrids will be “essential building blocks of the future electricity
delivery system to support resilience, decarbonization, and affordability.”

With 350 residential and essential service buildings already running on
solar and the town center set to be powered by two microgrids, Adjuntas has
become a model for how a community can transition to solar power. Members
of Congress like Nancy Pelosi
<https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=701571573517345> and Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez have endorsed
<https://www.elnuevodia.com/corresponsalias/washington-dc/notas/congresistas-se-solidarizan-con-el-proyecto-adjuntas-pueblo-solar-en-la-vispera-de-la-marcha-del-sol/>
the solar movement in Adjuntas; in March, Secretary of Energy Jennifer
Granholm met with leaders at Casa Pueblo to discuss strategies for Puerto
Rico to completely transition
<https://www.energy.gov/gdo/puerto-rico-grid-resilience-and-transitions-100-renewable-energy-study-pr100>
to renewable energy by 2050.

“They’re leading by example, showing that 100% solar power is possible for
Puerto Rico,” Granholm commented
<https://twitter.com/SecGranholm/status/1641121552262463488> after her
visit.

Leaders attribute their success to an approach that starts with bolstering
solar education and access, relies on deep knowledge of the specific local
needs, and builds wealth and resilience through community ownership of
clean energy generation.
Born out of necessity

Despite $12 billion of federal funding allocated for rebuilding energy
infrastructure since Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico’s central grid is still
in disrepair.

Puerto Rico-based Máximo Solar hired local women to help install the 700
solar panels that power the microgrid. (Photo courtesy of Casa Pueblo)

Outages after Fiona
<https://nexusmedianews.com/top_story/puerto-rico-hammered-by-fiona-entire-grid-down/>
in 2022 exposed the persistent vulnerabilities
<https://www.theverge.com/c/features/23404252/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-electric-grid-solar-panels-prepa-luma-fema>
of a system that’s reliant on imported fossil fuels, 32,000 miles of
distribution lines and a public utility that’s $9 billion in debt. Since
private American-Canadian company LUMA took over the island’s transmission
and distribution in 2021, rates have increased more than seven times
and blackouts
have continued
<https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/07/puerto-rico-plunged-into-darkness-after-power-station-fire.html>
.

Puerto Ricans experience the consequences on a daily or weekly basis
<https://poweroutage.us/area/state/puerto%20rico>, while spending 8% of
their income
<https://ieefa.org/resources/latest-puerto-rico-plan-electric-grid-step-wrong-direction>
($21,967, on average) on electricity, compared to 2.4% on the U.S mainland.
To keep cool during increasingly frequent heat waves
<https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/puerto-rico-faces-dangerous-situation-record-breaking-heat-rcna88168>,
islanders are using more energy — causing blackouts
<https://www.elnuevodia.com/noticias/locales/notas/el-calor-extremo-sacude-la-capacidad-del-sistema-electrico-de-puerto-rico/>
amid exceedingly dangerous temperatures.

Hundreds of renewable energy advocates, many represented by the
movement Queremos
Sol <https://www.queremossolpr.com/> (We Want Sun), say the solution is
obvious. Rooftop solar alone could potentially provide four times
<https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy21osti/78756.pdf> the island’s residential
energy demand, Department of Energy studies have shown.

Despite efforts
<https://bvirtualogp.pr.gov/ogp/Bvirtual/leyesreferencia/PDF/2-ingles/17-2019.pdf>
to transition to renewables and the local government’s goal of sourcing
100% renewable energy percent by 2050, the island currently sources less
than 4% from renewables.

The utility Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) has instead
advanced natural gas projects
<https://periodismoinvestigativo.com/2022/09/new-fortress-breaches-contract-on-gas-supply-puerto-ricos-government-allows-it/>
without federal regulatory approval and even proposed a fee
<https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2022/03/23/puerto-rico-solar-tax-has-been-defeated/>
on energy generated by rooftop solar to help restructure their debt. In
April, a group of environmental non-profits sued FEMA
<https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/fema-sued-rebuilding-puerto-ricos-power-grid-focusing-renewables-rcna79394>,
claiming
<https://biologicaldiversity.org/programs/public_lands/pdfs/FEMA-Puerto-Rico-Complaint-04112023.pdf>
that the federal agency’s plans to rebuild the grid “fail to meaningfully
consider relying on distributed renewable energy systems.”

The Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund’s
<https://grist.org/article/puerto-rico-energy-resilience-fund/> $1 billion,
approved by Congress last year and managed by the U.S. DOE, isn’t expected
to be allocated until the end of 2023. In the meantime, the DOE team is
collecting input from community leaders like those at Casa Pueblo, who have
been on the ground developing their own solutions for the past six years.
La Insurrección Energética

Since distributing 14,000 solar lamps after Maria, Casa Pueblo has
built a public
solar park
<https://www.elnuevodia.com/ciencia-ambiente/otros/notas/adjuntas-tendra-su-bosque-solar-construido-por-casa-pueblo/>
and installed more than 350 solar systems on homes and essential service
buildings.

Homes with solar are saving an average of $40 per month on energy bills,
Casa Pueblo estimates, and were able to maintain power when Fiona hit last
fall.

These ongoing projects have given locals the opportunity to see the
benefits of solar energy firsthand and garnered support for the microgrid,
which has been four years in the making.

In 2019, leaders at Casa Pueblo were considering the potential impacts of
solarizing businesses in downtown Adjuntas — providing energy security in
the heart of the community while disrupting the fossil fuel industry by
unplugging those with the highest energy demands, as Massol Deyá saw it.
Meanwhile, business owners like Izairry were looking for alternatives.

But as the microgrid idea was taking shape, Casa Pueblo’s late co-founder
Tinti Deyá Diaz wasn’t totally on board; she wanted to ensure lower-income
residents would continue to benefit from the solar transition.

Her concern led the 14 businesses owners who will receive power from the
microgrid to form the nonprofit Asociación Comunitaria Energia Solar
Adjuntas (Community Solar Energy Association of Adjuntas, or ACESA),
essentially operating as an independent utility.

They’ll pay 25 cents per kWh to themselves, about 10 cents cheaper than
what they’d pay the utility. After covering maintenance and operation
costs, proceeds will be reinvested in community solar projects,
prioritizing homes of the most vulnerable Adjunteños.

It’s a model many communities on the island are interested in replicating.
Last October, Casa Pueblo organized a community meeting to bring together
about 30 groups working on solar projects on the island. Attendees included
folks working on a microgrid project
<https://www.sanjuandailystar.com/post/maricao-solar-microgrid-project-gets-underway>
in Maricao, a mountain town of about 5,000. They’re also aiming to solarize
local businesses, including the town’s only bank, which doesn’t have a
backup generator.

It hasn’t been easy to get some business owners to commit to a 20-year
project (the approximate life of the panels and batteries), says Andrew
Hermann, director of Monte Azul Foundation
<https://www.monteazulfoundation.org/>, which is spearheading the Maricao
project.

When residents of the mountain town visited Casa Pueblo, “seeing [the
microgrid] in person and talking to business owners that are super
pro-microgrid — it’s really assuring the business owners here,” Hermann
says. “That’s the type of energy that helps build these projects from the
ground up.”

At the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, researchers
are developing architecture and algorithms to make the Adjuntas microgrids
more reliable and resilient. (Photo by Carlos Jones / U.S. Dept. of Energy
/ ORNL)

Adjuntas is also the site of microgrid resilience research by scientists at
DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in collaboration with University of
Puerto Rico Mayaguez and other U.S. Universities.

“What happens if you lose 30-40% of the [power] generation in one solar
array due to a hurricane?” says Maximiliano Ferrari, an engineer at the Oak
Ridge lab and among the leaders of the research team.

The team is working to develop a technology to connect the two microgrids —
which they call a “microgrid orchestrator” — enabling them to share energy
if one is compromised. Referred to as networking or clustering, this nascent
technology
<https://www.microgridknowledge.com/distributed-energy/article/11427478/here-comes-the-future-bronzeville-microgrid-cluster-set-to-begin-operating-this-year>
is expected by many in the industry to be an important component of future
microgrids.

Ferrari says the project in Adjuntas is a perfect — and rare — testing
site, because the microgrids are so close together. The team plans to start
testing the microgrid orchestrator this summer. At the end of the project,
all the developments will be open sourced, says Ferrari.
“Solar energy, for an even better country!”

The project still faces the challenge of connecting to the central grid.
Only time will tell how the goals of ACESA will play out in reality. Massol
Deyá acknowledges mistakes along the way — for one, the project was
costlier than it could have been.

“But it’s the first time; you have to do it to have that experience, and
use that to help others,” says Massol Deyá. “We share what we have done —
the challenges, the limitations, the complications.”

The developments in Adjuntas have already been put to the test with
Hurricane Fiona.

A Category 1 storm when it hit in the fall of 2022, just days after the
five-year anniversary of Maria, Fiona caused prolonged outages
<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/27/us/hurricane-fiona-puerto-rico-blackouts.html#:~:text=That%20storm%20inflicted%20more%20damage,until%20nearly%20a%20year%20later.>
across the island. But in Adjuntas, the solar-powered fire station was able
to respond to local needs and even intercept calls from the station in
Ponce, 15 miles south, which had lost power. Casa Pueblo’s solar radio
broadcast was uninterrupted; remote workers gathered at the solar park to
plug in; many residents with medical conditions were able to continue
treatments thanks to the panels on their roofs.

Hours after the storm, one family posted on Casa Pueblo’s social media
thanking them for the solar system that allowed their daughter to continue
her dialysis during and after the storm.

In March 2023, thousands lined the streets of Adjuntas for Casa Pueblo’s
second annual rally for solar energy. (Photo by Katherine Rapin)

In March, thousands lined the streets of Adjuntas for Casa Pueblo’s Marcha
del Sol to show support for solar energy and celebrate the completion of
the microgrid.

“Energía so-lar — pa’ un mejor país!” they shouted. Solar energy, for a
better country!

“When you see the entire landscape, you know that we are still at risk — we
are going to be confronting the same climate change challenges, hurricanes,
earthquakes,” says Massol Deyá. “But I can say, and it was tested with Fiona
<https://time.com/6215138/solar-power-puerto-rico-hurricane-fiona/>, that
Adjuntas is in a better position to confront these realities.”

*This article is co-published with Nexus Media News
<https://nexusmedianews.com/> and made possible by a grant from the Open
Society Foundations.*
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