Puerto Rico’s fragile grid has been given a boost, with the US Department of Energy (DOE) offering more than half a billion dollars via the Loan Programs Office (LPO), under certain conditions, to build solar, storage, and solar-plus-storage on the island

Puerto Rico suffered a sweeping blackout in the US territory on New Year’s Eve, with a preliminary investigation by Luma Energy, the private company overseeing transmission and distribution of power, pointing to a failure in underground line in a southern location.