In January 2026, the U.S. Department of Energy terminated more than $539 million in active awards for residential solar and battery storage in Puerto Rico. These terminations effectively ended the Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund as it was originally designed and implemented.

On September 18, 2022, Hurricane Fiona made landfall in Puerto Rico as a Category 1 storm. The wind speeds were modest compared to previous hurricanes, and the physical damage was limited in many areas. Within hours, however, the electric grid suffered a total, system-wide outage. For residents, the situation brought back memories of Hurricane Maria five years earlier, when a Category 5 storm caused the longest blackout in U.S. history. 

In the aftermath of Fiona, it took the local utility three weeks to restore power to 97% of customers. While power lines were being repaired and generators slowly brought back online, government agencies struggled to coordinate deliveries of diesel fuel to critical facilities due to shortages and logistical complexities, particularly in rural and mountainous areas.

In contrast, homes and businesses across the island equipped with rooftop solar and battery storage continued operating during the outage. In the weeks following Fiona, community organizations and energy advocates pointed to those examples in conversations with lawmakers. They argued that large-scale grid reconstruction was moving slowly and would take years to complete. In the meantime, residents were still exposed to outages that posed immediate risks to health and safety.

Since Maria, the federal government had committed billions of dollars through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to rebuild Puerto Rico’s power grid. Those funds were intended to modernize infrastructure, harden transmission and distribution networks, and reduce the risk of island-wide failure. Yet in 2022, a comparatively weak storm was still able to knock out power across the territory, pointing to a lack of progress.

Advocates urged Congress to fund rooftop solar and battery storage for Puerto Rico’s most vulnerable households as an interim resilience measure. Distributed systems, they argued, could be deployed more quickly, targeted to households with the greatest need, and continue operating even when the centralized grid failed.

The late Representative Raúl Grijalva, then Chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, led efforts in Congress to secure federal funding for residential solar and battery systems in Puerto Rico. In an October 12, 2022 letter cosigned by 37 other members of Congress, Rep. Grijalva urged then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro to provide $5 billion to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) “for rooftop solar and storage solutions for low-income households and households with people with disabilities in Puerto Rico in an emergency supplemental appropriations bill.”

Ultimately, $1 billion was authorized in December 2022, just three months after Hurricane Fiona. Although Rep. Grijalva did not live to see the effort through, Puerto Rico remembers with gratitude his leadership and compassion that made it possible.

What did Congress fund, exactly?

The FY2023 Omnibus included the following appropriation for DOE:

“$1,000,000,000, to remain available until expended, to carry out activities to improve the resilience of the Puerto Rican electric grid, including grants for low and moderate income households and households that include individuals with disabilities for the purchase and installation of renewable energy, energy storage, and other grid technologies: Provided, That the Department of Energy shall coordinate with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Development on these activities.”

In the interpretation of the Omnibus language and follow-up correspondence from Congress members, DOE had understood the intent to be specific in the following aspects: 

1. These funds were not meant to replace or overlap with the FEMA- and HUD-funded grid reconstruction. It was meant to complement them. 

2. By focusing on distributed energy resources, DOE could move more quickly and deliberately, delivering resilience at the household and community level while the longer-term reconstruction efforts continued in parallel. 

3. Funding had to target the most vulnerable residents of Puerto Rico, those whose lives are at risk when power goes out, and the critical facilities they depend on.

Anchored by this congressional intent, DOE created the Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund (PR-ERF).

The Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund

Following the appropriation, DOE’s Grid Deployment Office developed a set of programs intended to align with congressional direction and reflect conditions on the ground in Puerto Rico. Program design was informed in large part by an island-wide listening tour, which included ten public town halls with residents, community leaders, mayors, and a wide range of other stakeholders.

Through these engagements, DOE heard repeatedly about barriers that standard federal energy programs often overlook. Many low-income households, for example, lacked formal title to their homes, having inherited properties across generations without clear documentation. Critical energy needs varied widely, ranging from refrigeration for medications and air conditioning for heat-sensitive medical conditions to dialysis machines and respiratory equipment. Participants also highlighted the central role of rural community health clinics, many of which are forced to shut down entirely during extended power outages. They further pointed to a recent local low-income solar program that filled its 5,000 available slots within minutes of launching, illustrating how first-come, first-served enrollment models can exclude households without access to transportation or internet service.

These insights were central to how DOE approached program design, eligibility criteria, and implementation strategy for residential solar and battery storage in Puerto Rico, resulting in the creation of the multi-pronged PR-ERF:

Programa Acceso Solar ($491 million)

The largest initiative of PR-ERF, Programa Acceso Solar was launched in 2023 to deploy solar and battery storage systems to low-income households with residents who rely on electricity and battery-powered medical devices, or otherwise reside in areas that experience frequent power outages. Two solar companies—Sunnova and Generac—were competitively selected to offer heavily subsidized leases with zero upfront costs to eligible households.

The structure of Programa Acceso Solar differed from typical federal energy incentive programs.

Enrollment was not first-come, first-served. Households were not expected to apply through an online portal or compete in an open queue. Instead, DOE selected community leaders and local organizations to serve as its Solar Ambassadors. These organizations were responsible for identifying eligible households, assisting with intake, and supporting participants through installation and system use.

As part of the program, DOE also funded two organizations—Hispanic Federation and the Institute for Building Technology and Safety—specifically tasked with beneficiary education and consumer protection, recognizing that installing solar and battery systems in vulnerable households required capacity building and long-term support. 

Community-Sponsored Installations ($48 million)

Four non-profit organizations—Barrio Eléctrico, Environmental Defense Fund, Let’s Share the Sun Foundation, and Solar United Neighbors—were collectively awarded $48 million in 2023 to deploy up to 2,000 residential solar and storage systems in their communities. These organizations were selected based on their existing footprint, demonstrated success in solar installations, and established trust in specific low-income communities, from Isabela and Adjuntas to Salinas and Culebra. 

Programa de Comunidades Resilientes ($365 million)

Launched in 2024, the objective of Programa de Comunidades Resilientes was to provide solar and battery storage installations across two types of vital infrastructure serving low- and middle-income populations: (1) community healthcare facilities, and (2) community centers and other common areas within public and subsidized multi-family properties. In December 2024, four local teams were conditionally awarded to coordinate the deployment of up to 400 systems across facilities or properties in partnership with local stakeholders. 

What changed?

By January 2025, DOE had issued competitive funding opportunities, selected awardees, executed grant agreements for Programa Acceso Solar and the Community-Sponsored Installations Program, and extended conditional awards for Programa de Comunidades Resilientes. Following the arrival of new political leadership at DOE, however, PR-ERF implementation was curtailed through a series of administrative actions. 

• In April 2025, Solar Ambassadors were instructed to stop intake for Programa Acceso Solar before the program reached its 30,000-household target. 

• In May 2025, DOE terminated all conditional awards issued under Programa de Comunidades Resilientes and dissolved the program. 

• On January 9, 2026, DOE terminated all eight awards for Programa Acceso Solar, community-sponsored installations, and education and consumer protection. The cancelled awards totaled approximately $539 million. 

These most recent terminations effectively brought PR-ERF, as it was originally designed and implemented, to an end.

There is limited public information on how the redirected funds are being used. The $365 million originally awarded under Programa de Comunidades Resilientes was redirected in full to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) through a sole-source contract for “key emergency activities designed to address critical vulnerabilities across generation, transmission, and distribution systems.”

About $350 million from the most recent cancellations are also reportedly being redirected toward PREPA. An email from a DOE representative indicated the following: 

“DOE will reallocate up to $350 million dollars from private, distributed solar systems to continue to support additional practical fixes to improve generation. The former administration pursued a 100% renewable future, which led to intermittent generation deployment policies that have raised energy costs for Puerto Rican families and businesses, threatened the reliability of their energy system, and undermined national security. The Puerto Rico grid cannot afford to run on more distributed solar power. The rapid, widespread deployment of rooftop solar has created fluctuations in Puerto Rico's grid, leading to unacceptable instability and fragility. Under President Trump's leadership, the Department's swift action is strengthening critical infrastructure and ensuring the American people have access to reliable, affordable, and secure  energy.”

Public records maintained by the Puerto Rico Financial Oversight and Management Board indicate that more than $10 billion in FEMA funding from Hurricane Maria remains available to PREPA for grid reconstruction activities. 

What is the impact of these cancellations?

Puerto Ricans continue to face some of the highest electricity rates in the United States, alongside some of the poorest reliability metrics, without any relief in sight. 

The Puerto Rico Energy Bureau, the utility regulator, is currently conducting a rate case to revisit base electricity rates for the first time since 2017. One of the proposals under consideration would add six new charges, raising the base rate from $4 a month to over $40, a 900% increase. 

The case is complicated by PREPA’s unresolved legacy debt and ongoing debates over cost allocation, with the potential for significant rate increases to cover debt service and operating shortfalls. PREPA has remained in Title III bankruptcy for years as it seeks to restructure more than $10 billion in debt. 

Meanwhile, system performance continues to deteriorate. Performance data filed by grid operator LUMA Energy in January 2026 show that outages have become both longer and more frequent, with outage duration increasing by approximately 16.2% and outage frequency rising by about 3.3% compared to the prior year.

Against this backdrop, PR-ERF had already begun delivering tangible relief. At the time of cancellation, 6,078 residential solar and battery systems had been installed. An additional 12,000 households had been approved, with installations underway or scheduled, when the program was terminated.

Those households included families like Doña Ramona’s. She lives with her three sons, all of whom have disabilities. She does not own a car and does not have internet access. Her household income consists of a monthly pension of roughly $100. Through Programa Acceso Solar, her home received solar panels and battery storage with no upfront costs and a fixed monthly payment of $10. 

A broader pattern

The dismantling of PR-ERF did not occur in isolation.

The website PR100.gov was recently taken offline, removing public access to the federal analysis that had guided long-term energy planning for Puerto Rico, driven by the territory’s statutory goal of reaching 100% electricity generation from renewable energy by 2050.

Multiple utility-scale solar and battery projects in Puerto Rico had been advancing through DOE’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing (formerly the Loan Programs Office) have been on hold for the past year. Some had even received conditional commitments for loans and loan guarantees, but are now reportedly being asked to modify the scope to remove solar components and/or replace them with thermal generation in order to be considered for final loan approval.

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This piece was drafted by trusted and vetted alumni of the U.S. Department of Energy. Any views and opinions expressed are that of the author(s) and do not reflect those of the DOE Alumni Network.