The US Department of Energy (DOE) wants Puerto Rico to develop clean energy technologies as one of several measures in the wake of the estimated $115bn of damage caused by Hurricane Maria, which the DOE says was partly the fault of poor maintenance. Its report said the island should rebuild infrastructure to follow the US Rural Utilities Service standards, reconsider its generation sources and move away from its current 90% dependence on energy from oil. The DOE also said PREPA should follow standards laid out in the National Electrical Safety Code and National Electrical Code. “While we are pleased that this is a step toward restoring electricity reliability for all residents of Puerto Rico, it does not address the underlying causes of the outage,” said Maria Quiñones-Sánchez, Puerto Rico has a target of generating 20% of its electricity from clean energy by 2035.
The US Department of Energy (DOE) wants Puerto Rico to develop clean energy technologies as one of several measures in the wake of the estimated $115bn of damage caused by Hurricane Maria, which the DOE says was partly the fault of poor maintenance. Its report said the island should rebuild infrastructure to follow the US Rural Utilities Service standards, reconsider its generation sources and move away from its current 90% dependence on energy from oil. “While we are pleased that this is a step toward restoring electricity reliability for all residents of Puerto Rico, it does not address the underlying causes of the outage,” said Maria Quiñones-Sánchez, Puerto Rico has a target of generating 20% of its electricity from clean energy by 2035.