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Energy storage, microgrids advance in Puerto Rico as storm season begins

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Energy storage, microgrids advance in Puerto Rico as storm season begins

As work to restore Puerto Rico's storm-ravaged power system continues into the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1, efforts to modernize the island's electric grid with new technologies are also advancing.

Tesla Inc., for instance, has around 11,000 energy projects currently underway in Puerto Rico, a company official confirmed June 4. CEO Elon Musk initially disclosed the projects in a June 2 Tweet. The official declined to cite the size of the installations or say whether they will include batteries, solar electric systems or both. In April, after Puerto Rico suffered another islandwide blackout, Musk said Tesla's lithium-ion batteries were online at 662 sites across the U.S. territory, with "several hundred more" being installed.

PowerSecure International Inc., a subsidiary of Southern Co., is working on up to seven microgrid projects for "big customers" in Puerto Rico, Southern CEO Thomas Fanning told investors May 23 at the company's annual shareholder meeting. "So don't think about Tesla being the leader. If there's going to be a leader down there, it's going to be us, I hope," Fanning said.

PowerSecure recently announced a partnership with a unit of Crowley Holdings Inc. to offer microgrids in Puerto Rico that combine liquefied natural gas, renewable energy and energy storage systems.

New microgrid rules

The apparent upsurge in microgrid and energy storage activity in Puerto Rico comes as regulators press ahead with reforms aimed at transforming the power sector and making the island's grid more resilient when hit by powerful storms.

The Puerto Rico Energy Commission on May 16 adopted regulations to create a legal and regulatory framework for "a new and emerging market for microgrid services." The rules apply to "personal microgrids" owned by no more than two energy consumers, as well as "cooperative microgrids" and projects owned by third parties. The regulation, which creates requirements for renewable energy, combined heat and power, and hybrid microgrids, seeks to "enable customer choice and control over their electric service, increase system resiliency, foster energy efficiency and environmentally sustainable initiatives and spur economic growth," the regulator said.

Also on May 16, the Commission ordered the government-owned Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, or PREPA, to develop new interconnection rules for microgrid systems. PREPA must propose the draft interconnection rules by mid-September.

Meanwhile, work to restore conventional transmission and distribution infrastructure hit by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in September 2017 is ongoing under a new $900 million contract PREPA recently awarded to Cobra Acquisitions LLC, a subsidiary of Mammoth Energy Services, Inc., and a $500 million contract with MasTec Inc., announced June 4.