Rmi Outlet
Caribbean Islands
Puerto Rico’s Electricity System at a Crossroads
Puerto Rico’s electric system is at a crucial inflection point, with an opportunity to pivot from years of hardship—high energy costs, utility bankruptcy, the largest blackout in US history, and heavy pollution from a system 98 percent powered by fossil fuels—to a new vision that is clean, reliable, and resilient.
Islands Energy Program Recognized with Global Team Leadership Award
Last month, the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) Islands Energy Program received the Global Team Leadership Award from the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). This honor is awarded to a geographically diverse team recognized for making outstanding technical contributions and demonstrating innovative thinking to overcome global…
Combating Climate Change: How Islands Can Go Further Together
This blog post was adapted from a keynote presentation given at the Pacific Power Association Annual Conference and was originally posted on Virgin.com. I was in Rarotonga, the capital of the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, in 2010, after the island of Aitutaki—just a few kilometers south of…
The Puerto Rico Renewable Microgrid Toolkit: A Data-Driven Approach to Resilience
When the lights went out September 20, 2017, no one could have foreseen that it would take 130 days to restore power to seven out of ten people in Puerto Rico. Throughout the restoration process, Puerto Rico continued to experience sustained, widespread blackouts that left many in the dark for…
Collaborating for Puerto Rico’s Energy Transformation
More than a year after Hurricane Maria passed by, Puerto Rico’s energy system does not fully meet the needs of the 3.4 million American citizens who live on the island. It is also not sufficient to sustain local commerce, which is worth $105 billion of GDP annually, and which includes…