About Connect Puerto Rico
Connect Puerto Rico is a newsletter and emerging network that tracks the people, policies, and projects shaping Puerto Rico’s energy development. It provides clear, contextual information about how energy decisions are made, who makes them, and who they affect.
The project’s mission is twofold.
First, Connect Puerto Rico follows how Puerto Rico’s energy system is being rebuilt — from the centralized electric grid to renewable and decentralized energy projects. It tracks how U.S. policy, investment, and infrastructure decisions intersect, and what those choices mean for reliability, resilience, and accountability.
Second, Connect Puerto Rico connects Puerto Rican communities across the United States — as well as allies and supporters of Puerto Rico — with news affecting the island. While Puerto Ricans living in Puerto Rico cannot vote in federal elections, Puerto Ricans and allies in the states can, and often lack consistent coverage of how U.S. policy decisions impact Puerto Rico.
By connecting energy systems with the communities and political power that influence them, Connect Puerto Rico strengthens understanding, accountability, and engagement around Puerto Rico’s energy development.
Why Connect Puerto Rico Exists
Connect Puerto Rico grew out of reporting on Puerto Rico’s rebuilding and modernization efforts after Hurricane Maria — and the realization that the crisis was driven as much by long-standing decisions as by the storm itself.
Even before Maria, Puerto Rico’s electric grid was aging, fragile, and under-maintained. The hurricane exposed those weaknesses at a devastating scale, triggering the longest blackout in U.S. history. The human toll that followed was driven less by the storm’s immediate impact than by the collapse of basic infrastructure. Thousands of deaths were linked to prolonged power outages, failures in medical and water systems, and the inability to meet everyday needs in the months after landfall.
In the year that followed, a powerful narrative took hold about rebuilding Puerto Rico with renewable energy and modern infrastructure. Reporting on that push revealed deeper challenges: policy decisions made far from the island, a diminished local workforce after decades of economic strain and brain drain, and growing reliance on outside contractors with limited local knowledge of Puerto Rico’s systems and communities. As federal funding and private investment accelerated, the gap between ambition and on-the-ground reality became harder to ignore.
Connect Puerto Rico began as a newsletter to track these decisions and clarify who was making them, how they were unfolding, and who was being left out. The longer-term aim is to build shared understanding and stronger connections across Puerto Rico and the United States — so energy decisions that shape daily life are more visible, better informed, and harder to ignore.
How the Work Is Approached
Connect Puerto Rico focuses on tracking and contextualizing, not producing original investigative reporting at this stage. The work centers on:
Curating and synthesizing credible reporting from multiple sources
Connecting policy decisions to real-world infrastructure and workforce impacts
Centering Puerto Rican expertise and lived experience
Making complex systems legible to people who influence funding, policy, and implementation
The newsletter is published monthly and prioritizes accuracy, transparency, and clarity over speed.
Connect Puerto Rico is independently produced and does not receive funding from energy companies or industry groups.
Who’s Behind Connect Puerto Rico
Jillian Melero is the founder of Connect Puerto Rico. She is a journalist, editor, and project manager with more than a decade of experience spanning policy, science, infrastructure, and equity-focused journalism.
She has held editorial and digital roles supporting coverage at The TRiiBE, WTTW News’ Chicago Tonight, Latino Voices, Black Voices, Climate Central, and Borderless Magazine. Most recently, she served as project manager for the Chicago Sun-Times / La Voz Chicago immigration resource project, coordinating editorial workflows, partnerships, and audience engagement.
Jillian previously served as president of the Chicago Headline Club (2023–2024) and holds a master’s degree in editorial journalism, specializing in health, environment, and science reporting from Northwestern University.
Jillian Melero
Looking Ahead
Connect Puerto Rico is a growing project. Over time, the work will expand through partnerships, collaboration, and sustainable support, with the goal of strengthening the information ecosystem around Puerto Rico’s energy development.