After Hurricane Maria decimated Puerto Rico’s infrastructure in September 2017, Tara Rodríguez Besosa got busy rebuilding the local food system. There was no shortage of work to be done. The storm destroyed the island’s power grid, leaving millions without electricity and causing extensive damage to hundreds of thousands of buildings. In the mountainous region around the city of Caguas, Besosa and other founders of El Departamento de la Comida, a restaurant and nonprofit produce store, joined one of the “solidarity brigades” that had sprung up to repair local farms. While Besosa and her fellow activists fixed roofs, built rainwater collection systems and installed solar energy systems, they engaged in a discussion about the future of food in Puerto Rico: what needed rebuilding, and what needed replacing.
Out of this conversation, says Besosa, emerged an “understanding that there isn’t going to be food sovereignty if we aren’t also achieving energy sovereignty.”
In Puerto Rico, the energy conversation begins with the island’s antiquated electrical grid. Already decrepit for years before Maria, it has not improved much since. The island still suffers constant outages. Due to the U.S. colonial government’s policies, the grid relies almost entirely on imported fossil fuels, with coal ash disposal sites concentrated in low-income areas along the southeastern coast, where they release harmful toxins into the air, water and soil.
A main component of any solution, as you might imagine for an island in the Caribbean, will involve solar photovoltaic power. In particular, and especially for rural farms, this means micro solar systems designed for off-grid living. And while some Puerto Ricans have already begun turning to off-grid energy solutions like solar microgrids, most versions rely on costly battery storage to run when the sun isn’t shining. This makes them inaccessible for most residents of wealthy countries, let alone Puerto Rico’s poor rural citizens.