Trump Administration Scraps Puerto Rico Solar Projects as Grid Fails

The projects aimed to help 30,000 low-income families in rural areas across the US territory as part of the now gradual transition to renewable energy.

In an email obtained by The Associated Press, the U.S. Department of Energy said Puerto Rico’s former governor’s push for a 100 percent renewable future threatens the reliability of its energy system.

“Puerto Rico’s grid cannot afford to run on more distributed solar power,” the message states. “The rapid and widespread deployment of rooftop solar has created fluctuations in Puerto Rico’s grid, leading to unacceptable instability and fragility.”

Javier Rua Jovet, public policy director for the Puerto Rico Solar and Energy Storage Association, disputed that statement in a phone interview Thursday.

He said about 200,000 families in Puerto Rico rely on solar power, which produces close to 1.4 gigawatts of energy per day for the rest of the island.

“This helps prevent outages,” he said, adding that these systems’ inverters also help regulate fluctuations in the grid.

He said he regretted the cancellation of solar energy projects. “It’s a tragedy, honestly,” he said. “These are funds for those most in need.”

Earlier this month, the Department of Energy canceled three programs, one worth $400 million, that envisioned installing solar and battery storage systems in low-income homes and those with medical needs.

The department said in its email that it will reallocate up to $350 million from private distributed solar systems on Jan. 9 to support fixes to improve energy production in Puerto Rico. It was not immediately clear whether that funding had been allocated.

One of those programs would finance solar projects for 150 low-income households on the small Puerto Rican island of Culebra.

“People are really upset and angry,” said Dan Whittle, vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund, which is overseeing the project. “They see other people keeping the lights on during these power outages, and they’re not sure why they’re not included.”

He noted that a privately funded project helped install solar panels and batteries on 45 homes a week before Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico in September 2022.

Whittle said he was stunned by the federal government’s decision.

“They’re buying hook, line and sinker because solar energy is the problem. It couldn’t be more wrong than that,” he said.

The solar projects were part of an initial $1 billion fund created by the U.S. Congress in 2022 under former President Joe Biden to help increase energy resilience in Puerto Rico, which is still recovering from Hurricane Maria.

A Category 4 storm hit the island in September 2017, devastating the power grid, which was already weakened by a lack of maintenance and investment. The cuts have continued since then; There were major power outages on New Year’s Eve in 2024 and during Holy Week last year.

In recent years, residents and businesses who can afford it have embraced solar power on an island of 3.2 million people with a poverty rate of over 40 percent.

But more than 60 percent of the island’s energy is still produced from oil-fired power plants, 24 percent from natural gas, 8 percent from coal and 7 percent from renewable sources, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The cancellation of solar projects comes a month after the administration of Puerto Rico Governor Jenniffer Gonzalez filed a lawsuit against Luma Energy, a private company that oversees energy transmission and distribution on the island.

At the time, Gonzalez said the electricity system “has not developed at the speed, consistency, or level of efficiency that Puerto Rico deserves.”

The fragility of Puerto Rico’s energy system is being exacerbated by a fight to restructure more than $9 billion in debt held by the island’s Electric Power Authority, which has failed to reach an agreement with creditors.