Trump cancels Puerto Rico solar project designed to help 30,000 low-income families in rural areas

The projects were aimed at helping 30,000 low-income families in rural areas across the U.S. territory as part of a now-fading transition toward renewable energy.

In an email obtained by The Associated Press, the U.S. Energy Department said that a push under Puerto Rico’s former governor for a 100% renewable future threatened the reliability of its energy system.

“The Puerto Rico grid cannot afford to run on more distributed solar power,” the message states. “The rapid, widespread deployment of rooftop solar has created fluctuations in Puerto Rico’s grid, leading to unacceptable instability and fragility.”

Javier Rúa Jovet, public policy director for Puerto Rico’s Solar and Energy Storage Association, disputed that statement in a phone interview Thursday.

He said that some 200,000 families across Puerto Rico rely on solar power that generates close to 1.4 gigawatts of energy a day for the rest of the island.

“That’s helping avoid blackouts,” he said, adding that the inverters of those systems also help regulate fluctuations across the grid.

He said he was saddened by the cancellation of the solar projects. “It’s a tragedy, honestly,” he said. “These are funds for the most needy.”

Earlier this month, the Energy Department canceled three programs, including one worth $400 million, that would have seen solar and battery storage systems installed in low-income homes and those with medical needs.

In its email, the department said that on Jan. 9, it would reallocate up to $350 million from private distributed solar systems to support fixes to improve the generation of power in Puerto Rico. It wasn’t immediately clear if that funding has been allocated.

One of those programs would have financed solar projects for 150 low-income households on the tiny Puerto Rican island of Culebra.

“The people are really upset and angry,” said Dan Whittle, an associate vice president with the Environmental Defense Fund, which was overseeing that project. “They’re seeing other people keep the lights on during these power outages, and they’re not sure why they’re not included.”

He noted that a privately funded project helped install solar panels and batteries on 45 homes a week before Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico in September 2022.

Whittle said he was baffled by the federal government’s decision.

“They are buying hook, line and sinker that solar is the problem. It could not be more wrong,” he said.

The solar projects were part of an initial $1 billion fund created by U.S. Congress in 2022 under former President Joe Biden to help boost energy resilience in Puerto Rico, which is still trying to recover from Hurricane Maria.

The Category 4 storm slammed into the island in September 2017, razing an electric grid already weakened by a lack of maintenance and investment. Outages have persisted since then, with massive blackouts hitting on New Year’s Eve in 2024 and during Holy Week last year.

In recent years, residents and businesses that could afford to do so have embraced solar energy on an island of 3.2 million people with a more than 40% poverty rate.

But more than 60% of energy on the island is still generated by petroleum-fired power plants, 24% by natural gas, 8% by coal and 7% by renewables, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The cancellation of the solar projects comes a month after the administration of Puerto Rico Gov. Jenniffer González sued Luma Energy, a private company overseeing the transmission and distribution of power on the island.

At the time, González said that the electrical system “has not improved with the speed, consistency or effectiveness that Puerto Rico deserves.”

The fragility of Puerto Rico’s energy system is further exacerbated by a struggle to restructure a more than $9 billion debt held by the island’s Electric Power Authority, which has failed to reach an agreement with creditors.