The Solution to Failing Energy Grids May be Smaller than We Think
Microgrids have served communities facing blackouts in Puerto Rico, maybe they could serve Texas, too.
When it comes to electricity, bigger is not always better is one lesson cities in Texas can learn from a thriving, energy-secure, municipality in Puerto Rico. Both Texas and Puerto Rico are managing fragile energy grids prone to failure. In Texas, winter storms have swept the state, leaving millions without power for days. Similarly, in Puerto Rico, hurricanes cut electricity for up to a year in all but one municipality. In Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, a solar-powered microgrid run by Casa Pueblo provides reliable energy for homes, medical equipment, and community amenities, even after a disaster. The municipality is creating power on a small scale and reaping massive benefits by looking within its community for a solution. Casa Pueblo shows how clever, community-driven solutions are crucial to the US energy transition.
Puerto Rico, an archipelago in the Caribbean, was struck by Hurricane Maria in 2017, leaving some residents without power for nearly a year, one of the longest blackouts in U.S. history. Initially, the official death toll from the hurricane was 64, but some projections estimate the number of indirect deaths linked to electricity loss is closer to 3,000-5,000. Despite this, the island continues facing frequent blackouts. Puerto Rico and most of the US operate on a centralized grid. Centralized grids run off energy generated hundreds or thousands of miles away from consumers’ homes or businesses. Large-scale energy production sounds impressive, but is proving unreliable in face of increasingly frequent natural disasters; one collapsed power line can leave an entire region dark. However, in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, Casa Pueblo implemented solutions to move away from relying on large, privatized electricity.
Casa Pueblo is a community-based project dedicated to preserving Puerto Rico's environment and culture through community self-management. In the 1990s Casa Pueblo began experimenting with solar power. They started by teaching people how to use solar panels, then moved to building small solar-powered installations for appliances like an emergency respiratory machine, or small fridge. Soon, upgrades provided critical loads for 300 homes, and eventually at a grocery store. Now they’ve built microgrids with intelligent controls to optimize energy flow. Microgrids generate and provide power within a local area and can operate independently or integrate with an existing power grid. More recently, Casa Pueblo has built another microgrid and connected the two to support the municipality during blackouts.
“In the Caribbean, climate change is having a really huge impact,” explained Arturo Massol, the executive director of Casa Pueblo. “What we are facing is a centralized fossil fuel energy set up that is very vulnerable with hurricanes and age and lack of maintenance and topography.” As he dissected the energy problem in Puerto Rico, the island continuing to rely on centralized grids began to appear more and more impractical.
For Massol the problem is multifaceted, but at the core of their mission is "democratizing energy generation.” Casa Pueblo sees a need for “the wealth associated with that power generation to be retained within the community for [their] own economic development.” Puerto Rico is an unincorporated US territory, which lacks adequate representation compared to States within the US government. Concerns over their long-term fuel dependency have prevented them from becoming independent from the US, as Puerto Rico completely depends on fossil fuel imports to generate electricity. Casa Pueblo sees an opportunity to prove to naysayers that Puerto can indeed operate independently, “who cares about oil when you have natural resources that can be used to meet the energy needs of the island.” Additionally, Massol views solar powered microgrids as “building climate adaptation.”
“We have been tested,” Massol explained. “We operated for 4 months after hurricane Maria, after Hurricane Fiona in 2022 [we operated] for nine days while there was no power in the region, the same with earthquakes and Hurricane Edin.” A month ago, a tail of Hurricane Edin hit Puerto Rico and the entire island faced a power outage, but the people served by the microgrid in Adjuntas had uninterrupted power.
He explained that in Puerto Rico, microgrids “are a necessity because of the lack of reliability upon the centralized system,” so Casa Pueblo is “pushing for community energy systems that are owned by the people.”
Casa Pueblo’s microgrids are quite advanced, supplying energy “in homes that need it for medical reasons, grocery stores, critical infrastructure like the fire station, emergency units, and elderly homes,” and now they’ve even connected microgrids to the municipality to support parts of Adjuntas when the centralized grid fails.
“By far, we are in a better position by having these community-owned energy systems, the vulnerability is reduced, the disparities and inequality gets reduced.” Texas has experienced similar disasters and would benefit from transitioning away from relying on large scale power.
In 2021, the Winter Storm Uri hit Texas, leaving 4.5 million homes without power for an average of 42 hours, but some customers had no power for 6 days. Failures in the state's energy grid are largely due to changes in weather patterns that it was not built for. The Texas governor responded by requiring ERCOT, Texas’s energy supplier, to weather-proof the grid, but one year later another winter storm swept central Texas, leaving people without power again. Unprecedented natural disasters and changes in temperature have created a need for resilient changes to infrastructure quickly. Small scale, independent energy production sites are one way to prevent isolated disasters from becoming catastrophic.
In Houston, after Hurricane Beryl in 2024, electrical vehicles owners reported using their cars to power their homes. This enabled individuals to access cooking equipment, heaters, and power electronics and when outages swept the city, demonstrating the need for small scale energy solutions. Communities could expand on these principles by following Casa Pueblo in becoming less reliant on unreliable infrastructure.
From Massol’s perspective Texas “has the universities, the knowledge, the innovation” to pull off a movement like Casa Pueblo because “Texas is blessed with natural resources beyond oil”. Massol reminds Texans that “you can't hide from climate change. Hurricane Harvey impacted Houston the same year Hurricane Maria impacted Puerto Rico”.
Federal oversight is shrinking and states are sluggish to weatherize the grid along with other key pieces of infrastructure. Meanwhile, the impacts of climate change have been felt in Puerto Rico, Texas, and beyond. In Texas, consecutive winter storms rendered the grid inoperable, decimated power lines, and the State’s government failed to adequately respond. Neighborhoods and communities in Texas must step up to execute a grassroots movement like Casa Pueblo. When Texas passed a meager legislative measure to make the grid resilient, they were trying to achieve the kind of energy security Casa Pueblo has, but failed to do so. Adjuntas' microgrid managed to provide electricity more reliably than the centralized grids in Puerto Rico and Texas during natural disasters through collective, community-driven action.
Massol asks Texans facing climate disasters, “what do you do in the aftermath? Are you going to be suffering like Puerto Rico is, even today?” For Puertoricans in Adjuntas, “redefining energy resilience as community strength” has been an answer since the 1990s and continues to grow energy security in an increasingly perilous time.