DOE funds Puerto Rico battery project, cuts solar aid

Puerto Rico's power grid has struggled for years, ever since Hurricane Maria wrecked it in 2017. Rolling blackouts are still common on the island today. This week the Department of Energy closed a nearly half-billion-dollar loan. It's meant to help fix part of that problem. The money adds batteries that can keep the lights on when the grid falters.

The batteries need something to charge them, and that's where the contradiction shows up. The Department of Energy also cancelled separate funding for community solar projects on the island around the same time. Batteries store power, but they don't make it. Without more clean generation to fill them, the grid could end up leaning harder on gas and diesel plants. It already depends on those plants today.

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Will Puerto Rico actually get more reliable power out of this, or just a different mix of the same problems? The battery project should help smooth out the grid's worst swings. But cutting solar funding means less new generation is coming online to charge those batteries. The real test comes next hurricane season, when the island's patched-together grid gets pushed to its limit again.