The Renewable Energy You Want With The Reliability You Need

HOW A MASH-UP OF OLD AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES MIGHT REWRITE THE FUTURE OF ELECTRIC POWER.

- Allen Schaeffer

Just a few months shy of the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria making landfall in Puerto Rico— where households went an average 84 days without electricity and 68 days without water, nearly 11,000 customers remain without power, and about 20 percent of the island’s small and mid-size companies remain closed—what have we learned?

This nearly unprecedented natural disaster set the stage for a necessary debate about the energy future of the island and the best technology and fuel choices for the future. Emerging themes are that base load power needs to be more sustainable and renewable, the grid network must be re-thought, and backup systems are an essential feature.

Unbeknownst to almost everyone before Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico’s electrical infrastructure was a deteriorating patchwork in need of upgrading, one which relied on diesel generators to provide base load electricity for the island. On the mainland United States, coal, nuclear energy, natural gas, and renewables are the base load fuels of choice, because of their cost and accessibility. Diesel is not often used for prime power simply because of its higher fuel costs. Yet, where it’s deployed, it works.

The extended disaster period in Puerto Rico opened the doors to potential new approaches, delivered valuable experience, and highlighted the benefits and limitations of new systems. Even as Tesla’s Power wall solar plus-battery system was successfully deployed at the Hospital del Niño in Guaynabo just weeks after the storm, Maria’s aftermath displayed the extreme fragility of these renewable systems.

Utility-scale solar arrays were tossed about like Lego bricks, and wind turbine blades snapped or shredded like matchsticks following the disaster. Beyond businesses and essential services, millions of Puerto Ricans relied on diesel-powered generators for months after the storm.