The Energy Department announced Wednesday it closed a $489.4 million loan to help strengthen Puerto Rico’s electric grid.
The loan to Amanecer Puerto Rico — a subsidiary of Pattern Energy — builds on long-running efforts to bolster Puerto Rico’s outage-prone grid and to help restore reliable access to electricity. The investment is expected to save families and businesses in the U.S. territory about $312.5 million in electricity costs over the next 25 years, according to DOE’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing.
“This investment will strengthen Puerto Rico’s electric grid, lower electricity costs, support American manufacturing, and provide a pathway for the reliable, dispatchable power needed to deliver affordable, reliable, and secure energy for the people of Puerto Rico,” said EDF Director Gregory Beard in a statement.
A conditional loan was initially announced in the final days of the Biden administration as part of a broader portfolio of clean energy projects aimed at reducing Puerto Rico’s dependence on its fossil-fuel-powered grid. The Loan Programs Office, as the office was called at the time, said the financing would support solar and storage projects.
