Overview
- The Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing closed a $489.4 million loan to Amanecer Puerto Rico to fund 220 megawatts of battery energy storage sited in Arecibo and Santa Isabel.
- The department says the storage will back up power for more than 100,000 customers, avoid about 13 million customer interruption hours, and save Puerto Rican households and businesses roughly $312.5 million in electricity costs over 25 years.
- The finalized loan announcement omits an explicitly funded 70-megawatt solar project that had been part of a Biden-era conditional commitment and instead references support for a pathway to future natural-gas-fired generation.
- The change follows a 2025 DOE reprioritization that redirected and later canceled $350–365 million intended for rooftop solar and storage, reflecting the office’s new emphasis on dispatchable and reliability-focused projects.
- The investment aims to reduce frequent blackouts on the island and could accelerate plans for dispatchable fuel sources and grid upgrades, with observers watching whether the shift slows large-scale solar deployment in Puerto Rico.