The Biden-Harris administration has, for years, vowed to deploy thousands of solar panels to stabilize Puerto Rico's power grid amid regular blackouts, government mismanagement, and ever-increasing residential electricity rates. But, years after making that promise, a $1 billion program central to that effort yielded only a tiny handful of solar panels, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.
"We’re talking about energy and solar. That’s where the power is, right there," Vice President Kamala Harris said during a speech in Puerto Rico earlier this year.
During her remarks, Harris touted the so-called Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund, a $1 billion fund managed by the Department of Energy and designed by Democrats in 2022 to quickly address Puerto Rico's electrical grid vulnerabilities via the installation of tens of thousands of rooftop solar and battery storage systems across the island. That fund has taken a central role in the administration's plans to, as President Biden said in October 2022, "transform the entire" Puerto Rican grid.
While the Department of Energy declined to tell the Free Beacon how many solar panels have been installed using program funds, Sunnova Energy—one of two U.S. solar firms awarded funding to oversee implementation of the program—acknowledged that just "a small, initial batch" of installations have been completed across the entire island so far. The other firm, Generac Holdings, declined to comment.
Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D., Ariz.), one of the program's architects, recently stated that the initial batch of solar installations was completed in mid-July, months after the Department of Energy originally promised. Grijalva helped insert the program in the 2023 government funding bill, which Biden signed into law in December 2022 after the president called for more green energy funding in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Fiona.
"The island is in the thick of hurricane season and high temperatures, and families on the island continue to battle weekly, or in some cases daily, power disruptions," a solar industry expert with knowledge of the program's inner workings told the Free Beacon. "We need to figure out how to move faster."
The slow rollout of the Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund highlights the challenges facing the Biden-Harris administration as it attempts to oversee an influx of billions of dollars in green energy funding nationwide. And it further highlights the ongoing energy-related issues facing Puerto Ricans—in addition to the federal government's ongoing inability to fully address those issues.
In recent years, Puerto Rico has been hit with a number of catastrophic storms and hurricanes that have inflicted substantial damage on the island and its power grid. Democrats have sought to address this damage through green energy programs. At the same time, residential electricity rates have surged, recently hitting an average of 23.77 cents per kilowatt-hour, the Associated Press reported last month, or 44 percent more than the U.S. average.
The media have given little attention to the program because of the Biden-Harris administration's decision not to provide a progress update on installations. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and New York Democratic Reps. Nydia Velázquez and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, though, traveled to San Juan on July 17 to trumpet the program but, again, didn't share information about the number of installations that have occurred.
During the trip, Granholm met with a small number of residents, who she said have benefited from the program, boasting that the funding is life-changing.
"The Department of Energy is focused on ensuring the successful deployment of the Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund and increasing energy resilience and reducing the energy burden for Puerto Rican households," an agency spokeswoman said. "From its inception, [the program] has centered stakeholder and community priorities for improving local energy resiliency. The department remains committed to working with all stakeholders to accelerate the deployment of solar and storage systems across Puerto Rico."
The spokeswoman added that the Department of Energy has processed thousands of applications for the program and expects to complete at least 3,000 installations by the end of the year.
Roughly seven months after the Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund was established, Energy Department officials announced the agency would release $453 million of the $1 billion earmarked for the program. Then, in November 2023, the agency released the awardees for that first tranche: Sunnova, Generac, and a handful of smaller Puerto Rican firms. Sunnova and Generac are set to each receive $200 million to deploy the solar systems.
According to the Biden-Harris administration, those systems were initially expected to be built in Spring 2024 and help "achieve Puerto Rico and President Biden’s goal of lowering energy costs with a resilient grid powered by 100% renewable energy." The funding is intended to ensure up to 40,000 solar and battery systems are installed on the island.
"The program started with a small, initial batch of eligible households, and we will be diligently ramping up through the rest of the summer and into the fall," said Sunnova spokesman Ryan Bechtold. "The program period of performance is a maximum of five years, but Sunnova expects that working with our on-island solar installers, we should be able to complete the execution comfortably inside the five-year deadline."
Last month, the Department of Energy announced its intent to issue a second tranche under the Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund, worth $325 million. After those funds are awarded, another $235 million will still be remaining in the fund.
Jorge Rodríguez, who serves as the CEO of the free market think tank Instituto de Libertad Económica Para Puerto Rico, told the Free Beacon that a number of factors may be at play with the slow deployment of installations under the program. He noted, for example, that Puerto Rico is in the midst of an economic crisis, has experienced the largest outbound migration of any part of the United States, and has had cases of corruption in the past.
He also said the companies contracted by the federal government will be required to work alongside local subcontractors, further slowing down progress.
"There have been significant corruption cases in the handling of federal funds in the past, so local authorities are very careful and slow in handling federal funding as everyone involved locally is very afraid of mishandling funds or being accused of doing so," said Rodriguez. "This is mainly because we lack, at the local level, the systems, processes, and structures to handle such a large and historic volume of federal funds."
"The fact is that we lack the market efficiencies to execute properly. The paternalist government that we have had for so many years and the significant extra limitations of our government in our markets are at the root cause of those market failures seeing today," he continued.
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