Up to 94% of the energy Puerto Rico consumes—which is 70 times what it generates—is provided by imported fossil fuels, but the island has enough wind and solar potential to exceed its projected annual energy loads through 2050, a new report shows.
But the recent study by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) also notes [pdf] that food security is a high priority for locals, which means renewable installations will have to be carefully sited to protect agricultural land. Distributed energy resources and storage capacity will be key to meeting Puerto Rico’s energy needs as the island grapples with its reliance on imports for both energy and food.
“This isn’t just about transitioning to clean renewables,” Maritere Padilla-Rodriguez, senior director for policy and advocacy for the Hispanic Federation, told Politico. “This is about resiliency, energy justice, and saving lives.”
The DOE’s summary report released earlier this month details how Puerto Rico can meet its targets for transitioning away from fossil fuels as described in the Puerto Rico Energy Public Policy Act (Act 17), which charges it to meet electricity demand with 100% renewable energy by 2050, 60% by 2040, and 40% by 2025.
A successful transition depends on siting projects carefully to avoid adverse effects on food security, a high priority on the island. DOE found that “if only utility-scale solar and land-based wind resources were deployed, Puerto Rico could not meet its renewable capacity targets given the amount of land available when agricultural land is excluded.”
Both energy and food security are top concerns in Puerto Rico, where 85% of the food consumed is imported and subject to U.S. regulations that increase prices relative to other nearby islands. Those concerns are especially prominent following the devastation wrought by Hurricane María in 2017. After sweeping through the island, the hurricane—which killed nearly 3,000 people—left much of the population with limited access to food and energy, a concern made worse by Puerto Rico’s inability to produce significant amounts of either on its own.
The tension between the two basic needs is a point of friction, as the limited land base is being sought out for new energy developments. In some cases, communities are taking legal action to push back where large-scale solar and wind installations are planned for prime agricultural land. Earthjustice is suing the Puerto Rico government on behalf of six environmental, agricultural, and public health organizations “to prevent the illegal siting of utility-scale renewable energy projects on agricultural and ecologically sensitive land without a thorough assessment of their community and ecosystem impacts,” the non-profit says. “Utility-scale solar projects require clearing large swaths of land for development, exacerbating Puerto Rico’s shortage of locally produced food, further displacing small farmers, heightening the risk of flooding and community displacement, and perpetuating the failed centralized electricity system that continues to undermine the archipelago’s independence and resiliency.”
“At the end of the day, food security and energy security are interlocked,” said Ismael Arciniegas Rueda, a senior economist at RAND who studies energy issues in Puerto Rico.
Given stakeholder feedback highlighting the importance of preserving agricultural land, the DOE shaped its analysis to consider how much impact renewable energy development would have on food production. Comparing two scenarios, one where agricultural land was not excluded from hosting utility-scale renewable installations and an alternative that did exclude farmland by incorporating more intensive deployment of distributed energy sources, particularly rooftop solar, the study found that strategically deploying renewable technologies could still be enough to meet the island’s entire energy demand.
“A key finding from this analysis is that utility-scale PV deployment on non-agricultural land is sufficient to meet total annual electric load to 2050 in our scenarios,” the study states. “Achieving the 100% target would not require any technological breakthroughs.”
This pathway comes at a price: DOE projects that the reduced economies of scale and greater infrastructure costs for maintaining a less-centralized energy network would lead to higher costs for electricity.
But greater emphasis on distributed energy resources would also help make Puerto Rico’s grid more resilient to future shocks, especially if coupled with increased energy storage capacity necessitated by the emphasis on solar.
“We have no need to impact agricultural land,” Padilla-Rodriguez said during a panel discussion moderated by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. “No need to sacrifice Puerto Rico’s goal for food security to achieve a 100% renewable energy transition.”
