August 2023 Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund Updates.
August 9, 2023
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Readout of Secretary Granholm's Visit to Puerto Rico
From July 31, 2023 through August 2, 2023, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm traveled to Puerto Rico as part of continued community engagement in support of the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to building back a stronger and more resilient electric grid for the Commonwealth.
While in Puerto Rico, the Secretary made transformative announcements including a $450 million funding opportunity announcement (FOA) aimed at increasing residential rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) and battery storage installations with a focus to reach and support up to 40,000 of Puerto Rico’s most vulnerable residents. An additional $3.5 million Solar Ambassador Prize will go to community groups to help the Department of Energy (DOE) identify and connect with eligible households. The funding is part of the $1 billion Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund (PR-ERF)—which was authorized by President Biden in December 2022 and is administered through DOE’s Grid Deployment Office (GDO).
Throughout the trip, the Secretary revisited communities in Salinas, Orocovis, Arecibo, and Loíza, and spoke with residents and organizations during town hall conversations organized in partnership with the Hispanic Federation of Puerto Rico. These engagement-driven discussions continue to provide critical local feedback that will help DOE deploy community-tailored solutions to improve resilience for Puerto Rico’s electric grid.
Solar Ambassador Prize Webinar
The $3.5 million Solar Ambassador Prize is a competitive funding opportunity for community-based organizations, nonprofits, and for-profit entities with an existing presence in Puerto Rico to identify and engage qualifying households to sign up for residential solar and battery installations funded through the $1 billion Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund.
In this webinar, presenters provided an overview of the prize goals, reviewed the prize rules, and answered questions from attendees.
Read the official prize rules and visit www.herox.com/solarambassador for more information.
Live captions and Spanish live interpretation were provided during the webinar.
NEW: Application Videos for the Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund Funding Opportunity Announcement
On July 31, 2023, the Grid Deployment Office released a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for up to $450 million to support residential rooftop solar photovoltaic and battery storage installations and offer consumer protection and education resources. Potential applicants may include private industry, educational institutions, state and local governmental entities, non-profit organizations, and energy cooperatives. Through this deployment-focused funding, DOE aims to incentivize the installation of roughly 30,000–40,000 residential solar and battery systems. Qualified beneficiaries of the systems installed by selected partners will include very low-income, single-family households that are either located in areas that have a high percentage of very low-income households and experience frequent and prolonged power outages or contain a family member with an energy-dependent disability, such as individuals who need electric wheelchairs for mobility or those that use at-home dialysis machines.
GDO published two informational videos on its website to support applicants, including:
1. An Overview of Summer 2023 Funding Opportunities
2. How to Apply to this FOA
Click here for more information on the FOA and how to apply.