Sixteen participants formed the Community Energy Association of Adjuntas, or ACESA, to manage the first microgrid in Puerto Rico. Its members include a pizzeria, bakery, pharmacy, hardware store and a church. Everyone pays a fixed monthly rate for the solar electricity they consume. The group uses that money to cover the costs of operating and maintaining the system. Notably, the fees will also help lower-income families and rural shops to install their own green energy production and storage systems.
To start, ACESA members will pay 25 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity, said Ángel Gustavo Irizarry, the group’s president. The rate is less than the 27.53 cents/kWh that commercial utility customers paid in December 2022, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Furthermore, microgrid participants won’t have to worry about surprising surcharges whenever the costs of importing oil and gas for power plants skyrocket.
“Completing this project will be a blessing for business owners, for our staff and for the community that we serve,” said Irizarry, who also owns Lucy’s Pizza, a bustling restaurant on a corner of the main square.
“This is going to be our proof of concept,” he said. “We’re designing it in such a way that it can be expandable to any number of microgrids” in Adjuntas and beyond.
Once the microgrid is up and running, the community will be prepared to face future disasters, said Massol Deyá of Casa Pueblo. “We’re going to be in a much better position during the next hurricane season.”
