reader comments 52
German battery business Sonnen and its Puerto Rican photo voltaic-installation partner, Pura Energía, announced that they’ve installed six solar-plus-storage methods around Puerto Rico, and have plans for nine more. The initial six methods were donated, in keeping with an announcement from Sonnen, notwithstanding or not it’s unclear whether the next nine should be donated or funded with the aid of any other entity.
within the aftermath of typhoon Maria, which devastated the island more than ten weeks ago, Sonnen and its stationary-storage rival Tesla both promised to donate substances to help install renewable energy methods and microgrids. (Tesla completed a photo voltaic-plus-storage installation at a children’s sanatorium in late October, although it failed to release particulars in regards to the measurement of the installing or its rate.)
because the hurricane, scandal after scandal have complicated the restoration of the island’s main grid, leaving residents counting on diesel or gas mills for vigour and making inexpensive, emission-free photo voltaic vigor the entire extra vital.
The methods installed by using Sonnen and Pura Energía each include an array of solar panels, in addition to stationary batteries from Sonnen’s Atlanta, Georgia manufacturing center, which save photo voltaic power for evening use.
Three of the panel-and-battery pairings had been installed at lavendarías (laundromats) in La Perla, Loizia, and Morovis. The La Perla and Morovis installations both have 8kW, 16kWh batteries, and the one at Loiza bought a 4kW, 8kWh battery. The microgrids are “used to vigour community washing machines, refrigerators, and some fundamental electrical outlets,” Sonnen pointed out.
an extra equipment with a 8kW, 16kWh battery become put in at a meals guard in Humacao, powering “refrigeration and meal instruction for as much as 500 people per day.” In Aguadilla, a equipment with a 4kW, 8kWh battery “provides lights, refrigeration, microwaves, and enthusiasts for a college that offers psychological features for babies with behavioral and developmental disabilities.” at last, another gadget in Maricao acquired two 4kW, 8kWh batteries to vigour “refrigerators, lights, cellular router, and different power services for a defend housing 45 residents displaced by means of the typhoon in an isolated mountain city a good way to doubtless be with out vigour for a lot of months.”
despite the fact these neighborhood solar and battery installations are small, microgrid advocates argue that they are a step within the right route. native power production and storage fosters power resilience, that allows you to turn into greater critical as climate change makes grid-stressing warmth and climate pursuits greater average. allotted energy techniques present assurance that if a storm takes out an immense technology plant, residents of smaller communities don’t should look forward to high priced, long-distance transmission strains to be rebuilt before regular capabilities resume. These considerations are not recent, or particular to Puerto Rico, either. After Superstorm Sandy hit the east coast in 2012, new york state funded microgrid analysis within the hopes of warding off the power outages the vicinity experienced in the the storm’s aftermath.
In Puerto Rico, many residents are now entering their third month with out vigour from the Puerto Rico electric powered vigor Authority (PREPA). As of December three, the govt says handiest has 68 percent of PREPA’s generating units are again on-line (and generating units do not reflect the percentage of shoppers with their energy restored). The troubles are in part due to the fact that lots of the island’s transmission traces have been determined on complex-to-attain, mountainous terrain, but politics has had its share of impact within the delays as neatly.
quickly after the hurricane struck, PREPA made a $ 300 million contend with a Montana company known as Whitefish power to rebuild the island’s destroyed grid. but news begun to surface that known as into question the phrases of the deal, which appeared to offer better fees and per diem allowances for Whitefish’s contractors than seemed common. A leak of the contract between PREPA and Whitefish additionally confirmed that the contract prevented the commonwealth of Puerto Rico and FEMA from performing an audit of Whitefish’s charges and earnings. in addition, the contract seemed to indicate that the Federal Emergency management company (FEMA) signed off on the deal, though FEMA denied having seen the contract in any respect. In October, Puerto Rico’s governor mentioned he desired to end the cope with Whitefish, though the contractor has remained on the island to finally end up the work that it began.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Google+
LinkedIn
RSS