Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens since 1917 but have yet to enjoy such fruits of citizenship as a reliable, storm-resistant electric grid. Nine years after devastating hurricanes wiped out the entire territory’s electric infrastructure, costing three thousand lives and leaving many without power for over a year, the federal government appears ready to seriously take on the challenge.
Last month, on top of other grid-related projects underway, the U.S. Department of Energy approved construction of a new natural gas power plant in the Dominican Republic that will intersect with Puerto Rico’s Mayaguez substation via a submarine power cable. The project will send Puerto Rico up to 700 MW of electricity – an extra 10% of the territory’s current capacity.
Caribbean Transmission Development Company (CTDC) is expected to finalize purchase agreements with Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority for the so-called Hostos Project, with a total investment of US$2.5 billion. When completed (estimated for 2031), CTDC will transport electricity via a 125-mile-long underwater cable exclusively to the Puerto Rican market.
CTDC President Rafael Velez Dominquez says the planned facility will use natural gas but is also adaptable for burning green hydrogen once it becomes commercially available. The two-way submarine transmission line will also be capable of sending electricity to the Dominican Republic, strengthening regional energy security.
Long ignored by Congress and the White House, the territory’s inadequate infrastructure became a public concern after back-to-back Hurricanes Irma and Maria in September 2017 caused most of the electricity transmission and distribution system in Puerto Rico to collapse, leading to one of the longest blackouts in U.S. history.
Repairing or replacing failures or faults to 2,478 miles of transmission and sub-transmission lines, 48 transmission centers, 31,446 miles of overhead lines, 1,723 miles of underground lines, and 293 substations came with a $100 billion price tag.
According to the 2019 Puerto Rico Infrastructure Report Card, issued by the American Society of Civil Engineers, nearly every public service – from roads to solid waste to energy to water to wastewater and even ports – got Ds or Fs. About 98% of the island’s electricity was generated by fossil fuels, which kept average prices at under 20 cents per kilowatt-hour (when available).
The early hurricane response, said the ASCE, focused solely on the short-term goal of restoring power as quickly as possible, but the long-term need for developing a resilient and sustainable energy grid was overlooked. The ASCE said Puerto Rico needs to increase infrastructure investment by $1.3 to $2.3 billion a year over the next 10 years to fashion a grid that can support economic growth and competitiveness.
Simply put, these American citizens living in a climate-vulnerable area needed help. And the ASCE made four recommendations. First, increase infrastructure resiliency to make it less vulnerable to severe storms and able to facilitate timely emergency management, response, and recovery efforts after major events.
Puerto Rico, they said, also needs an Infrastructure Plan to support economic growth. It also needs a commitment to fund the comprehensive maintenance of existing roads, bridges, energy, dams, and other networks – the lack of which has severely impacted the lifespans of those assets.
Perhaps most important, Puerto Rico needs to improve and increase the technical expertise of the local workforce. A shortfall of qualified personnel at infrastructure facilities hampers efforts to complete regulatory requirements. Worse, the institutional knowledge that does exist may be lost when individuals retire or resign – and workforce training across the territory has failed to produce enough people ready to step in and take over.
Despite the island-wide damage, it took Congress until December 2022 to approve a $1 billion package to upgrade the resilience of Puerto Rico’s electric grid and until February 2024 for the DOE to launch Programa Acceso Solar with a goal to connect up to 30,000 households with residential rooftop solar and battery storage systems – a Biden Administration priority.
But as David Blackmon pointed out in a recent article, Puerto Rico’s grid still relies on antiquated oil generation plants for 62% of 2024 overall capacity, rather than cleaner, cheaper natural gas. Further, despite much-needed privatization of its utility, Puerto Rico has not been able to modernize transmission and distribution and over-relies on intermittent energy sources (including 10% reliance on rooftop solar).
Shortly after being confirmed, Energy Secretary Chris Wright issued two emergency orders to empower the Puerto Rico government to address immediate problems with its fragile grid system. One authorized deployment of generation units to expand baseload generation; the other directed the Electric Power Authority to remove brush, trees, and vines that present risk of shortages and fires.
Those orders have since been renewed four times, and DOE says its emergency actions have assisted Puerto Rico in restoring up to 820 MW of baseload generation capacity. Moreover, several plants have run without water injection during a water crisis, adding to grid resiliency.
The shift in focus between the Biden and Trump administrations was highlighted last September, when the DOE announced reallocation of $365 million from the 2022 appropriation to switch from funding solar and battery storage installations at healthcare facilities to supporting “practical fixes and emergency activities” that offer faster, more impactful energy solutions.
Solar advocates howled at “the final dismantling of the Biden era’s distributed energy strategy for the island,” from which only 5,000 of the planned 30,000 solar and battery storage installations in rural areas had been completed. They lamented “the end of DOE’s grid work in Puerto Rico.”
“The former administration pursued a 100% renewable future,” the Wright-led DOE explained in response, and that “led to intermittent generation deployment policies that have raised energy costs for Puerto Rican families and businesses, threatened the reliability of their energy system, and undermined national security.”
Solar advocates have no real answer to the fact that over 725,000 households (about 60% of all units) in Puerto Rico reported damages to their dwellings from Irma and Maria, including tens of thousands who were left roofless. [What happens to rooftop solar thrown to the wind?]
Blackmon also highlighted another major statutory barrier to grid modernization in Puerto Rico, one imposed by the territory’s outgoing governor Pedro Pierluisi in 2024. The amended law allows the government to assess an excise construction tax on federally funded recovery work, even work done before the amended law took effect.
The absurd law increased costs for federal recovery projects, delayed electric grid recovery and diverted mainland taxpayer dollars to offset debts incurred by the island’s 78 municipalities. It also made federal contractors more hesitant to bid on recovery projects. No wonder only 30% of recovery funds since 2017 had been disbursed.
One reason the DOE approved the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico power project is that construction and operation costs are 30% lower in the DR, a fact that can cut costs for the power company and lower bills for Puerto Rican customers.
The effort to bring Puerto Rico’s grid into the 21st century has a long way to go, but a federal approach that focuses on reliable, rather than intermittent, energy has a far greater chance to bring true prosperity to the long-ignored territory.
