‘We need to figure out how to move faster,’ a solar industry expert said
The Biden-Harris administration has, for years, vowed to deploy thousands of solar panels to stabilize Puerto Rico’s power grid amid regular blackouts, government mismanagement, and ever-increasing residential electricity rates. But, years after making that promise, a $1 billion program central to that effort yielded only a tiny handful of solar panels, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.
“We’re talking about energy and solar. That’s where the power is, right there,” Vice President Kamala Harris said during a speech in Puerto Rico earlier this year.
During her remarks, Harris touted the so-called Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund, a $1 billion fund managed by the Department of Energy and designed by Democrats in 2022 to quickly address Puerto Rico’s electrical grid vulnerabilities via the installation of tens of thousands of rooftop solar and battery storage systems across the island. That fund has taken a central role in the administration’s plans to, as President Biden said in October 2022, “transform the entire” Puerto Rican grid.
While the Department of Energy declined to tell the Free Beacon how many solar panels have been installed using program funds, Sunnova Energy—one of two U.S. solar firms awarded funding to oversee implementation of the program—acknowledged that just “a small, initial batch” of installations have been completed across the entire island so far. The other firm, Generac Holdings, declined to comment.
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Roughly seven months after the Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund was established, Energy Department officials announced the agency would release $453 million of the $1 billion earmarked for the program. Then, in November 2023, the agency released the awardees for that first tranche: Sunnova, Generac, and a handful of smaller Puerto Rican firms. Sunnova and Generac are set to each receive $200 million to deploy the solar systems.
Last month, the Department of Energy announced its intent to issue a second tranche under the Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund, worth $325 million. After those funds are awarded, another $235 million will still be remaining in the fund.
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