The Grassroots Movement That Built Puerto Rico’s First Community-Owned Microgrid

Photo: Retrieved from nextcity.org

For two weeks after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017, Lucy’s Pizza was the only restaurant open in the central mountain town of Adjuntas. The town’s 18,000 residents, like those on the rest of the island, were entirely without electricity.

“No one has power, you can’t get gas, it’s difficult to make food, so everyone came here to eat,” says owner Gustavo Irizarry. “The line,” he gestured down the block along the town’s central plaza, “endless.”

Using a diesel generator, Lucy’s was running at about 75% capacity. The generator was loud, emitted dangerous fumes and wasn’t always reliable. Irizarry was often up in the middle of the night to restart the generator because of the risk of losing power to the refrigerators. He didn’t want ingredients to spoil.

Now, nearly six years later, Irizarry is poised to generate his own energy from the sun. He’s one of 14 merchants in downtown Adjuntas who invested in the island’s first community-owned solar microgrids — expected to go live before the height of hurricane season this summer.

“After Maria, we saw the vulnerability and the necessity to have an electric system that truly works,” Irizarry says. “To have better, alternative power, to be able to live.”

The microgrid project is the latest effort in a two decades-long grassroots movement to build energy security in Puerto Rico in the form of solar power.