Puerto Rico Can Achieve Reliable And Equitable Clean Energy. Here’s What It’ll Take.

This post was written by Sierra Club President Ramón Cruz and Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp.

Forbes / Aug 11, 2020

Puerto Rico sits in the eye of what’s been the busiest hurricane season on record with an old and historically unreliable power system. The all-too-common occurrence of blackouts left more than 400,000 people in San Juan in the dark hours before Tropical Storm Isaias made landfall on the U.S. territory. Isaias is the latest storm to test Puerto Rico’s preparedness after Hurricane Maria tore apart its electric grid in 2017.

Lack of funding to rebuild critical infrastructure and the Trump administration’s ongoing neglect have elevated the risk that unimaginable human suffering awaits with the next storm. 

There are few places where social, economic and environmental inequality are on display more starkly than in Puerto Rico. Only months ago a series of earthquakes dealt another blow, causing widespread blackouts and leaving thousands of people without shelter in Guayanilla and other towns on the southwest corner of the island. Now, the coronavirus has halted an already struggling economy. Relief can’t come fast enough. 

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