Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi (D) is racing to shore up his territory's power grid ahead of the next hurricane. The island has been fortunate to have not suffered another major hurricane in the nearly five years since Hurricane Maria killed nearly 3,000 people and decimated its electrical grid , but it continues to be plagued by paralyzing power outages. A private company, LUMA Energy, took over Puerto Rico's grid a year ago. He's also hoping to ramp up renewable energy production via an offshore wind project and microgrid development. Puerto Rico has a goal of 100 percent renewable electricity by 2050, but is only at 3 percent currently. Pierluisi was in Washington, D.C., earlier this month to meet with top officials in the Biden administration, primarily about the island’s ongoing reconstruction efforts and energy issues. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Who in the Biden administration are you meeting with and what will you be discussing? The Biden administration has been a blessing in removing bureaucratic restrictions we were facing before my tenure. With [Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro] Mayorkas, I will be praising FEMA because FEMA lately has been prioritizing the rebuilding of the grid. Very much so. By 2025, we should be generating from renewable sources [enough to meet] up to 40 percent of our needs and we’re far away from that. DOE has the Loan Programs Office that can help proponents to finance their projects. And DOE can also assist us in ensuring that, for example, in the process of requesting proposals for microgrids, DOE can help us make sure those RFPs are well crafted and that the review of any proposals is up to par, that we’re applying best practices in picking and choosing among microgrid proposals. What are the obstacles to getting to Puerto Rico’s renewable energy target and is it possible to achieve that in the time frame? We’ll do whatever we need to do to meet that goal. That’s why I’m not being shy about asking for help wherever I need it. [The approved renewable energy projects] generate about 850 megawatts, all of them. We are also in the process of ensuring that there’s at least 250 megawatts in battery storage available for those projects. Now, all of that has been blessed, but now it needs to happen. These projects will take two years, easy, two, perhaps even three to come to fruition. There’s a lot more in the pipeline because the Energy Bureau in Puerto Rico is spearheading this RFP process for more renewable energy projects. Most of them will be solar, but we shouldn’t rule out, for example, windmills, including ocean-based windmills far out in the ocean. That’s one type of project that is being proposed. Have you talked to DOE about this proposed offshore wind project? DOE knows about it and they are instrumental in making sure that it is technically sound to rely on those. I want DOE’s support in setting up microgrids in Puerto Rico, actually changing the system itself. Our system is totally integrated. That’s why recently we had a huge blackout. If you have a major problem in one of the big generation units in Puerto Rico or plants in Puerto Rico, the problem is that the system is all interconnected so it protects itself. And then you get a blackout and to bring back all of those generation plants back on is a process. It takes days, like we saw. It took four days to get it all back. We need to move away from this integrated system and microgrids are critical to do that. DOE can be very helpful in making sure that we get the right microgrids in place in Puerto Rico in the near future.
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