In Viejo San Juan, the power goes out so often that when it happens now, it is not uncommon to hear people in the neighborhood break into cheers. No one is celebrating the darkness or the prospect of another long, hot night without air conditioning or fans. But blackouts have become an unpleasant routine.

Puerto Rico’s power grid is overwhelmingly dependent on fossil fuels. Despite billions of dollars allocated for reconstruction and improvements in generation capacity, it is still fragile and prone to failure, and efforts to modernize it have moved slowly. Between 2021 and 2024, each household lost electricity an average of 19 times a year and spent nearly 27 hours without power, while paying roughly $0.28 per kilowatt-hour ranking fourth in electricity prices among U.S. states, behind Hawaii, California, and Connecticut, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

As a result, many Puerto Ricans have been forced to buy generators. Those who can afford it have turned to solar energy. Under the Biden administration, federal climate programs, including funds from the Inflation Reduction Act and FEMA’s hazard mitigation initiatives, expanded incentives for rooftop solar and battery storage in disaster-prone places like Puerto Rico. These efforts included grants, rebates, and low- or no-cost installations through programs such as Programa Acceso Solar.

Rooftop solar offered energy independence, but Washington pulled back

In 2022, Congress created the $1 billion Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund to support renewable infrastructure and the archipelago’s goal of meeting 100% of its electricity needs with renewable energy by 2050. Demand quickly outpaced supply, with tens of thousands of households installing solar systems to escape an unreliable grid. 

An estimated 163,000 Puerto Rican households now pursue some form of energy independence, many through private loans, others through federal programs that supported rooftop solar and battery storage for........

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