In Puerto Rico, Trump admin backs big battery project but snubs solar

The Department of Energy is backing a major battery project to bolster Puerto Rico’s fragile electric grid — even as the Trump administration axes funding for key clean energy initiatives across the U.S. territory.

Last week, the DOE said it closed a nearly $490 million loan to a subsidiary of Pattern Energy to support two battery storage systems totaling 220 megawatts in the coastal cities of Arecibo and Santa Isabel. The loan was finalized by the agency’s renamed Office of Energy Dominance Financing, known as the Loan Programs Office under previous administrations.

Pattern’s battery systems are expected to provide backup electricity for more than 100,000 customers during power shortages — a chronic problem that has only gotten worse in the nine years since Hurricanes Irma and Maria all but destroyed the centralized electricity system. Batteries can help keep the lights on by delivering power to the grid during hours of high demand or when large power plants trip offline, as well as by managing voltages to avoid dips in electricity flows.

Notably, the DOE loan scrapped an earlier plan for Pattern to include a utility-scale solar project. In January 2025, at the tail end of the Biden administration, the office conditionally committed to providing San Francisco–based Pattern with a loan guarantee worth the same amount for a 70-MW solar project and three stand-alone batteries totaling 180 MW.

But not long after, Trump’s DOE began an ​“exhaustive” review of the Biden-era loan portfolio, which resulted in the office ​“restructuring, revising, or eliminating” over $83 billion in financing.

Any projects moving forward have been reshaped to reflect the Trump administration’s priorities, which do not involve advancing wind or solar projects. Pattern’s newly announced loan instead includes potential support for developing natural gas–fired generation in Puerto Rico, though the company and the DOE did not provide details on the gas component.

The Puerto Rican government has backed other efforts to build new power plants fueled by gas, which, like the oil that produces most of the island’s electricity, must be brought in by ship. Experts say new gas facilities would leave Puerto Rico even more exposed to the high costs and price swings that come with imported fossil fuels.

Gregory Beard, the director of Energy Dominance Financing, said the office analyzed Pattern’s loan and collaborated with the company ​“to restructure it using common sense, data driven solutions to ensure Puerto Rico gets the reliable and secure baseload power the Commonwealth deserves.”

A spokesperson for Pattern said the DOE loan will allow the developer to ​“continue advancing energy storage projects that improve grid reliability and resilience.” Pattern didn’t specify when it expects to begin construction or start operating the battery systems, or what their total energy capacity will be in terms of megawatt-hours.

That the Trump administration didn’t scrap the loan entirely underscores the peculiarities of its energy policy. Wind and solar are out, but batteries, geothermal, and hydropower are still in favor — though they haven’t received nearly as much support as natural gas, coal, and nuclear energy.

“The federal government is not pro-solar, but batteries seem to be generally uncontroversial on both sides of the aisle in the States,” said Javier Rúa-Jovet, chief policy officer for the Solar and Energy Storage Association of Puerto Rico. He noted that while batteries can soak up wind and solar power to provide around-the-clock clean energy, they also enable gas-fired power plants and generators to operate more nimbly to meet demand.

Rúa-Jovet spoke earlier this week from San Juan, which is grappling with not only a faulty electric grid but also an aging, underfunded water system. Authorities recently began rationing water in the capital and other major cities as an intense drought exacerbates long-standing infrastructure issues.

On the Pattern project, Rúa-Jovet said he applauded the DOE’s loan, despite losing the solar component. ​“Batteries of all sizes, in all places on the grid, are great for everyone,” he added.

The new storage projects ​“could also support the integration of greater renewable energy onto the system,” said Cathy Kunkel, an energy consultant at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

Pattern’s utility-scale battery project is advancing as the Trump administration disrupts efforts in Puerto Rico to deploy networks of smaller batteries paired with rooftop solar systems, including for medically vulnerable, low-income residents. Under Trump, the DOE has redirected hundreds of millions of dollars in federal resiliency funding away from such initiatives in order to shore up the island’s fossil-fuel power plants and gas pipeline infrastructure.

Congress originally meant for the funding to broaden access to Puerto Rico’s solar-plus-storage boom, which has provided a lifeline for many residents amid an onslaught of blackouts, electrical surges, and soaring electricity rates. In 2025, utility customers experienced an average of 36 hours of power interruptions not related to major events like hurricanes, up by 19% from 2024. By contrast, people on the U.S. mainland typically lack power for an average of just two hours per year, according to federal data.

Most of Puerto Rico’s energy storage capacity is divided across roughly 200,000 households and businesses, whose batteries totaled almost 2,900 MWh at the end of 2025.

Jenniffer González-Colón, the Trump-allied governor of Puerto Rico, has recently backed away from the island’s ambitious renewable energy goals in favor of expanding fossil fuels. Last year, the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau approved a new 560-MW gas plant in San Juan, and regulators are looking to procure another 3 gigawatts of power capacity to replace the existing power fleet — and they appear to prefer natural gas.

At the same time, over 1.2 GW of utility-scale battery projects are in development. That includes a 430-MW project from Tesla and Genera PR, a subsidiary of New York–based New Fortress Energy, which operates Puerto Rico’s legacy power plants. The companies plan to install Megapack systems at six aging facilities to improve grid stability, using $767 million in funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and disaster recovery funds.

“While the Puerto Rico government has pushed new natural gas plants as a solution to the island’s reliability problems, the reality is that utility-scale storage can be installed on a much shorter timeframe,” Kunkel said.