Puerto Rico receives US DOE loans to boost battery storage to 1 GWh

Puerto Rico’s fragile grid has been given a boost, with the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) offering more than half a billion dollars via the Loan Programs Office (LPO), under certain conditions, to build solar, storage, and solar-plus-storage on the island

Puerto Rico suffered a sweeping blackout in the US territory on New Year’s Eve, with a preliminary investigation by Luma Energy, the private company overseeing transmission and distribution of power, pointing to a failure in underground line in a southern-location.

Solar and storage

The local grid will be boosted by the commitment of US$584.5 million to developer-operator Convergent Energy and Power to build solar and battery energy storage systems (BESS).  The DOE published an announcement detailing the loan guarantee financing “finance “a solar photovoltaic (PV) system with an integrated battery energy storage system (BESS) and three stand-alone BESS projects across Puerto Rico,” as follows:

• A solar-plus-storage installation in the municipality of Coamo of a 100 MW solar PV system with a 55.5 MW / 64.1-MWh BESS.
• BESS installations in the municipalities of Caguas, Penuelas, and Ponce will have a collective capacity of up to 225 MW / 900 MWh.

The conditional commitment signals DOE’s intent to finance the project. The body must first complete an environmental review, and Convergant must satisfy certain technical, legal, environmental, commercial, and financial conditions before the Department definitive financing and funding are supplied.

Convergent CFO and co-founder, Frank Genova, said : “Enhancing grid reliability and sustainability in Puerto Rico is critical. We applaud the Department of Energy for recognising Convergent Energy and Power’s track record of expertise in the energy storage and solar sectors through this conditional commitment from the U.S. Department of Energy Loan Programs Office. We look forward to contributing to the modernization of Puerto Rico’s electric grid and advancing its clean energy goals.”

The company also said these systems, once operational, are expected to contribute to reducing emissions by nearly 2.5 million tonnes of CO2 on an annual basis, by reducing the need to operate fossil fuel powered generation.