When it comes to energy, Puerto Rico faces unique challenges: vulnerability to extreme weather, historic underinvestment in the electric grid, and ongoing fiscal pressures that complicate both grid maintenance and long-term planning.
And in recent years, it has been the Department of Energy’s Grid Deployment Office that has been and largely responsible for modernizing, rebuilding, and future-proofing the island’s grid. Since 2022, GDO has spearheaded a series of ambitious projects in Puerto Rico; these include both a study of the island’s grid that outlines a path toward 100% renewable energy by 2050, and programs to install solar and batteries in low-income homes to protect against blackouts. In 2023, Congress allocated $1 billion to the Puerto Rico Energy Resilience fund, managed by GDO. And GDO experts have worked to advise the Department of Urban Development in deploying $1.9 billion in disaster recovery funds for grid enhancements.
But a substantial portion of the federal funds allocated for Puerto Rico’s grid resilience and modernization remains unspent — and the future of DOE’s programs on the island have been in question since the presidential elections in November. This uncertainty is the result of both a change in priorities for the GDO now that it is short of much of its institutional knowledge, and a shift in leadership on the island itself.
Changes at GDO
One key challenge inevitably facing Puerto Rico’s grid projects now is the mass exodus of the career staff at DOE who helped stand them up and have managed them to date.
In recent weeks, at least half of GDO’s career staff has resigned, one employee told Latitude Media. GDO leadership who accepted the Department of Government Efficiency’s deferred resignation offer cited a fundamental inability to carry out the mission of the office, in part because they weren’t allowed to communicate with awardees, and grant funds were stuck.
Nick Elliot, Trump’s appointed director of GDO, acknowledged to staff that it would be very difficult to maintain the office’s programs without most of the staff. But when asked about what would happen to the Puerto Rico portfolio of work, said he “didn’t care,” one attendee of the office-wide call told Latitude Media.
While Elliot does have a background in power markets and energy development, many GDO staff were “disappointed in the lack of qualifications” in many of the other appointees the administration brought into the office. For example, one employee pointed to a “special assistant” working in GDO’s front office, Sam Fiely, whose only qualification, according to the introduction he gave to staff, was having authored a children’s book called “Let’s Go Brandon.” (“Let’s Go Brandon” is a political slogan and meme, used by critics of Joe Biden.”)
“GDO was a staff of subject matter experts, so this felt insulting,” the employee said.
As of early 2025, the bulk of the funds from the billion-dollar Puerto Rico Energy Resilience fund are still in the process of being awarded, negotiated, or deployed.
For example, the $365 million DOE award for the Programa de Comunidades Resilientes is still in negotiations as of earlier this year. Similarly, the residential rooftop solar and battery storage effort Programa Acceso Solar is still scaling up, and while the first wave of installations has occurred, it hasn’t spent its full $450 million allocation. And as of this year, renewables still account for less than 10% of generation in Puerto Rico — far short of the 40% mandated by Puerto Rican law.
But it isn’t just federal grants supporting Puerto Rican grid updates. Several Puerto Rican companies have also been awarded loans through DOE’s Loan Programs Office, which offers financing support for energy projects.
Residential solar and battery storage provider Sunnova inked a $3 billion deal with LPO for Project Hestia, which will seek to bring VPP-ready assets to underserved communities. A fifth of the project’s installations are slated to be in Puerto Rico.
Then, in January, in the final days of the Biden administration, LPO announced two more conditional commitments and one loan closing to power producers on the island, totaling over $1.2 billion.
Meanwhile, Project Marahu, a 200-megawatt solar and 284-MW energy storage project, finalized its deal last fall. That project is already underway and expected to come online later this year, but because LPO loans are disbursed in tranches, it’s unlikely that the full $861.3 million has yet been paid out.
Change in Puerto Rico
Trump has a history of disparaging remarks about Puerto Rico and its leadership; during his first term, federal funding for grid repairs was delayed by bureaucratic hurdles, slow disbursement, and disputes on oversight between the White House and local officials. And given the amount of Biden-era money that still needs to be allocated, many are worried the second Trump administration could withhold or redirect those funds.
Earlier this year, Trump ally Jenniffer Gonzáles-Colón was elected as Puerto Rico’s governor. Gonzáles-Colón has criticized DOE’s focus on rooftop solar, and advocated for increased use of natural gas and a review of contracts with private grid operators. While she has supported net metering, her administration is also moving to pass legislation eliminating Puerto Rico’s interim renewable energy mandates.
This is a dramatic pivot. During the Biden administration, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm made ten trips to the island, including in January of this year, when she met with community and industry leaders to tout the installation of solar and battery storage.
Former governor Pedro Pierluisi was a supporter of the Biden administration’s push for renewable energy, and worked closely with DOE to advance grid modernization and distributed solar efforts.
