Islands
From California to the Caribbean: Sharing Expertise on Developing Energy Storage for Grid Applications in Island Nations
Island nations seek innovative and urgent solutions to accelerate the deployment of clean, sustainable solutions to reduce electricity costs, improve grid reliability, and enhance the resilience of their electricity systems against extreme natural and man-made events. Many small island developing states (SIDS) have already initiated a clean energy transition by…
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…
A Locally Led Move Toward Microgrids in Puerto Rico
The start of this week, September 23, marks the average peak of the Atlantic hurricane season. After the devastating landfall of Hurricane Dorian in the northern Bahamas two weeks ago, the Caribbean community quickly moved to offer support. Relief began mobilizing out of New Providence and Andros Islands, which were…
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…