After the storm, a beacon of hope in Puerto Rico

When Hurricane Maria took down Puerto Rico’s electric grid in 2017, some residents endured nearly a year without power. On Culebra, an island off Puerto Rico’s northeast coast where Dulce del Rio-Pineda lives, people relied on noisy, dirty diesel generators for 18 months, but fuel was scarce. Del Rio-Pineda is a co-founder of Mujeres de Islas, a women’s collective that’s rebuilding Culebra’s self-reliance. As climate change threatens Puerto Rico with increasingly damaging storms, the group is turning to solar power, starting with a community kitchen that doubles as a culinary school. Such community-led efforts are key to EDF’s initiative to build a more resilient power system in Puerto Rico. We’re advocating legal reforms and developing innovative financing to support low-carbon microgrids — small electric networks that can run independently of the main grid — to give communities like Culebra access to clean, affordable and reliable power, even after storms. “It’s not just throwing panels on houses,” says del Rio-Pineda. “EDF knows the policies and economics that can help communities become sustainable.”