Why This Work Matters
Puerto Rico’s energy development shapes everyday life on the islands — whether homes have electricity after hurricanes, whether hospitals and water systems stay online, whether small businesses can reopen, and whether people can safely endure prolonged heat.
Climate change is intensifying these risks. Hurricanes are becoming stronger and wetter. Extreme heat is lasting longer. Aging infrastructure is under increasing strain. Power outages — sometimes lasting days or weeks — disrupt daily routines, threaten public health, and deepen existing inequalities.
Energy decisions determine how prepared communities are before disasters, how quickly systems recover afterward, and who bears the cost when systems fail.
Disasters reveal system failures
After Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017, damage to the electrical grid resulted in one of the longest and largest major power outages in U.S. history, underscoring the enormous challenge of rebuilding resilient energy infrastructure.
Years later, electricity reliability remains a daily concern for households, schools, hospitals, and businesses — even outside major storms.
Blackouts are often treated as isolated emergencies. In reality, they reflect long-standing choices about infrastructure maintenance, investment priorities, project implementation, and oversight.
Without sustained attention, these failures are addressed reactively rather than as symptoms of deeper structural problems.
Read GAO’s assessment of Puerto Rico’s electricity grid recovery challenges.
Decisions made far from the impacts
Many of the most consequential decisions shaping Puerto Rico’s energy system are made far from the islands — through U.S. federal policy, funding programs, regulatory frameworks, and private investment.
For people living in Puerto Rico, the impacts are immediate and personal: power outages, high energy costs, slow recovery, and uneven access to reliable electricity. For Puerto Rican communities and allies in the United States, those consequences can feel distant — even though they are shaped by U.S. institutions and political processes.
In 2024, the U.S. Department of Energy published the Puerto Rico Grid Resilience and Transitions to 100% Renewable Energy Study (PR100), a comprehensive federal roadmap outlining multiple pathways for Puerto Rico to reach 100% renewable energy by 2050, along with near-term benchmarks for grid reliability, resilience, and investment.
Learn more about the PR100 study and implementation roadmap (U.S. Department of Energy)
The PR100 was designed to address prolonged outages, slow infrastructure upgrades, and gaps between funding and implementation that continue to affect daily life on the islands.
When information about these decisions is fragmented, highly technical, or scattered across agencies, it becomes harder to connect policy choices to real-world outcomes — and harder for communities, allies, and decision-makers to understand what’s happening, what’s stalled, and why.
Puerto Rico as an early signal
Puerto Rico’s energy transition is often discussed as an early signal of challenges other regions are beginning to face: climate-driven disasters, aging grids, large-scale federal investment, and debates over centralized versus decentralized energy systems.
How these challenges are addressed — and how decisions are tracked and communicated — offers insight into how energy systems may evolve elsewhere under similar pressures.
Why sustained tracking and context matter
Energy development unfolds over years, not news cycles. Projects are announced, delayed, revised, and sometimes abandoned. Promises are made long before outcomes are visible.
Sustained tracking and people-centered context make it possible to see patterns over time: where progress is happening, where it stalls, and how decisions affect real lives. That clarity is essential for accountability — and for building energy systems that are resilient, reliable, and responsive to the people who depend on them.