Yabucoa Solar will lower clean energy rates while providing clean power and resilient energy storage to communities in southeast Puerto Rico.
January 17, 2025
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Jigar Shah
Former Director, Loan Programs Office
Jigar Shah served as Director of the Loan Programs Office (LPO) at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) from March 2021 to January 2025. He led and directed LPO’s loan authority to support deployment of innovative clean energy, advanced transportation, and Tribal energy projects in the United States. Prior, Shah was co-founder and President at Generate Capital, where he focused on helping entrepreneurs accelerate decarbonization solutions through the use of low-cost infrastructure-as-a service financing. Prior to Generate Capital, Shah founded SunEdison, a company that pioneered “pay as you save” solar financing. After SunEdison, Shah served as the founding CEO of the Carbon War Room, a global non-profit founded by Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Unite to help entrepreneurs address climate change.
Shah was also featured in TIME's list of the "100 Most Influential People" in 2024.
Originally from Illinois, Shah holds a B.S. from the University of Illinois-UC and an MBA from the University of Maryland College Park.
The Department of Energy Loan Programs Office (LPO) announced a conditional commitment for a loan guarantee of up to $133.6 million ($128.6 million in principal and $5.0 million in capitalized interest) to YFN Yabucoa Solar LLC, a subsidiary of AL-Infinigen Operating, LP (“Infinigen”). If finalized, the loan guarantee will finance Yabucoa Solar, a 32.1 MW-ac solar photovoltaic (PV) system with an integrated 14.45 MW (4.76 MWh) battery energy storage system (BESS), and a co-located, standalone 50 MW (200 MWh) BESS expansion in the municipality of Yabucoa, Puerto Rico—underscoring the Biden-Harris Administration’s deep commitment to rebuilding and modernizing Puerto Rico’s electric grid. Infinigen submitted the loan application for Yabucoa Solar to LPO in September 2023.
Yabucoa Solar will support approximately 160 peak construction jobs and up to 6 full-time operations jobs once fully operational. Yabucoa Solar is working directly with the mayor’s office in Yabucoa to hire locally, and its contractor plans to use apprentices for 15% of on-site labor during construction. Once complete, Yabucoa Solar will provide roughly 70,000 MWh of clean power annually to Puerto Rico.
Yabucoa Solar helps provide affordable electricity in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico’s average electricity price is nearly double the U.S. average despite per capita use being roughly 25% of the rest of the country. The solar PV system will generate affordable green power directly to Puerto Rico’s grid at prices to customers significantly lower than government-forecasted rates. As an operator of existing solar farms in Puerto Rico—including the islands’ largest—Infinigen is capable of economically operating and maintaining the facilities through the project’s lifetime.
These investments also provide much-needed reliability to Puerto Rico’s electric system. Puerto Rico faces some of the highest rates of grid disruption in the United States, and outdated generation equipment can impact the quality of delivered electricity. The integrated BESS facility will provide system resilience by providing near-instantaneous capacity and stability services that currently are served by central fuel-fired plants. The stand-alone BESS facility is primarily intended to shift load from peak hours during the day to off-peak hours during the evening and night. Each facility in the project is designed to be flood-resistant and to withstand windspeeds up to 156 mph, providing better reliability for communities who frequently face storm-induced outages.
Yabucoa Solar’s investments contribute to the 3,750 MW of solar PV and 1,500 MW of 4-hour battery energy storage systems Puerto Rico plans to install through 2035 to meet the island’s goal of generating 100% clean energy by 2050.
LPO borrowers are required to develop and ultimately implement a comprehensive Community Benefits Plan that ensures meaningful community and labor engagement, improves the well-being of residents and workers, and incorporates strong labor standards during construction, operations, and throughout the life of the loan guarantee. Yabucoa Solar’s contractor intends to hire locally where possible and has a strong history of working productively with labor and communities on the island.
Financing for this project would be through the Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment (EIR) program under Title 17 Clean Energy Financing (Section 1706). Established by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, EIR can finance projects that retool, repower, repurpose, or replace energy infrastructure that has ceased operations or that enable operating energy infrastructure to avoid, reduce, utilize, or sequester air pollutants or greenhouse gas emissions.
Today’s announcement is the latest in a string of actions DOE has taken to help strengthen Puerto Rico’s grid modernization and energy resiliency. In December 2022, President Biden authorized $1 billion for the establishment of the Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund (PR-ERF), which is administered by DOE’s Grid Deployment Office. The PR-ERF is a separate federal funding source to drive key investments in renewable and resilient energy infrastructure in Puerto Rico.
While this conditional commitment indicates DOE’s intent to finance the project, DOE and the company must satisfy certain technical, legal, environmental, and financial conditions before the Department enters into definitive financing documents and authorizes the funding of the loan guarantee.