Large-scale solar & battery storage projects on track for Guayama, Salinas

Oct 17, 2024

By The Star Staff

The federal government has just finalized a $861 million loan guarantee to fund what will be Puerto Rico’s largest utility-scale solar and battery storage installations, according to specialized publication Canary Media.

In July, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office announced financing for two solar-plus-storage facilities on the southern coast of the island, plus two standalone battery energy storage systems. The solar plants combined will have 200 megawatts of solar capacity — enough to power 43,000 homes — while the battery systems are expected to provide up to 285 megawatts of storage capacity, Canary Media said.

The installations, collectively called Project Marahu, will be led by Clean Flexible Energy LLC (CFE), an “indirect subsidiary” of the U.S. energy companies AES Corp. and TotalEnergies Holdings USA. The facilities will be located in the municipalities of Guayama and Salinas, Canary Media said.

The DOE offers loans for clean energy projects on the condition that borrowers meet certain financing and administrative requirements. According to the agency, CFE has now met all those conditions, meaning that hundreds of millions of dollars will soon start flowing toward construction.

Project Marahu is expected to go online sometime in 2025.

Jigar Shah, director of the DOE’s Loan Programs Office, told Canary Media that the loan presents a major opportunity to diversify and stabilize Puerto Rico’s grid, which currently relies on fossil fuels to produce more than 90% of its electricity.

“There’s a huge potential for additional projects like this,” he said.