Resiliencia Comunitaria In Puerto Rico

This June, the Community Energy Resilience Initiative (CERI) celebrates its first three microgrid solar and storage systems in Puerto Rico — at a pharmacy, a nonprofit that focuses on pre-vocational education and social services, and a fueling station — pioneering a new model for local resilience.

The CERI team will apply lessons learned to expand the benefits to approximately 350 critical facilities in Puerto Rico, unlocking the power of this model to drive equitable energy resilience in other countries, states, and cities globally.

Why Is Community Energy Resilience Important?

Resilient, distributed renewable energy systems can help protect communities, including their public health and economic activity, in the face of future disruptions.

Island nations like Puerto Rico face severe weather such as hurricanes with increasing frequency, duration, and severity due to climate change, as well as rising energy prices. Low- to middle-income communities feel the effects the most and are typically the last to be reconnected after outages.

What Is the Community Energy Resilience Initiative?

The Puerto Rico Community Energy Resilience Initiative (CERI), a collaboration between the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, Fundación Comunitaria de Puerto Rico (FCPR), and RMI, with support from Enel, fosters equitable access to affordable, resilient, and clean energy in lower- and middle-income communities. Solar and storage microgrids at critical facilities improve energy resilience, enabling them to stay operational for communities during times of crisis and routine outages.

CERI accomplishes this through a first-of-its-kind model in the Caribbean that blends grants and loans to create clean electricity systems tailored to each community’s needs. Program elements are designed for community involvement and ownership of the energy system each step of the way, including operational training for system installation, operation, and maintenance.

Our long-term goal is to increase the availability of clean, affordable, and resilient energy for sustainable community development and to ensure the continuity of essential services and products during emergencies and blackouts.

To dive into the details of CERI’s innovative model, please email CERI@rmi.org.