Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico led the nation in per-capita residential solar installations last year, but continued progress is threatened because a law extending solar net metering through 2031 has been challenged by a federal oversight board.

The report defines implementation actions, highly detailed in the PR 100 Final Report, but which are summarized into five actions from immediate to long-term to recurring.

Applications open February 22 for the DOE’s Solar Access Program for eligible single family homeowners in Puerto Rico.

While distributed solar and storage are advancing quickly in Puerto Rico, utility-scale solar and storage procurements ordered by Puerto Rico regulators in 2020 have made little progress.

Diesel generators have been the workhorse of disaster relief for decades but as the frequency of extreme weather events rises, so do calls to decarbonize the emergency response. Sustainability may not be the only benefit to using solar in a crisis, as pv magazine discovers.

The company is developing a 90 MW solar / 51.5 MW energy storage project with an agrivoltaic pilot program.

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.

Distributed solar and storage customers sign up with Sunnova to participate in the Flex Power Program. By compensating customers for the power supplied by their batteries, they are incentivized to participate in the program designed to provide energy that reduces strain on the grid and minimizes blackouts at critical times.

The funding will support the installation of solar and storage, as well as providing outreach to identify and connect eligible households.

Also on the rise: FEMA funds $97 million Puerto Rico microgrid with 15 MW solar, 12 MWh storage. Redflow to build 20 MWh redox-flow battery in California. And more.