Bloomberg News
After Months Without Power, Puerto Rico School Ditches Grid
02.15.2018
Classrooms at the SU Matrullas school in Orocovis are now entirely powered by solar panels and battery storage systems supplied by Sonnen GmbH and local developer Pura Energia. It comes after the school’s utility, bankrupt Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, has failed to restore electricity for more than a million people since the storm destroyed its grid, plunging the island into darkness.
Microgrid Knowledge
Solar Plus Storage Microgrids Bring Relief to Puerto Rico — And Hint of the Future
02.28.2018
At the tail end of installing 15 solar plus storage microgrids across Puerto Rico — all of the work charitable — Sonnen and Pura Energia are providing humanitarian relief and a hint of the energy model the island could become.
Located in a remote, mountain community in southern Puerto Rico, S.U. Matrullas provides K-9 education for some 150 students. Utility grid service was poor and unreliable even before Hurricane Maria struck. The hurricane damaged the school building and homes and wiped out the local grid, as well as water, services infrastructure.
Fast Company
During Puerto Rico’s Blackout, Solar Microgrids Kept The Lights On
04.24.2018
Seven months after Hurricane Maria hit Humacao, Puerto Rico–the first town on the island in the path of the storm–the community still hasn’t been connected to the national electric grid. But when the national grid went down last week after an accident, a community center in Humacao still had power.
The community center, like several other buildings across the island, now has its own solar electricity and battery storage system. “I think the irony wasn’t lost on anyone that we were sitting there with a full suite of electrical power while the rest of the island did not have it,” says Adam Gentner, director of business development in Latin America for Sonnen, a company that makes solar microgrids that can operate with or without a connection to a larger power grid.
PBS News Hour
Can solar energy speed Puerto Rico’s recovery? Here’s what it would take
04.04.2018
It’s been just over six months since Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico and roughly 150,000 people still do not have power. A string of grassroots efforts aims to jumpstart the grid with solar energy. Science producer Nsikan Akpan explains what they’ll need to see the light.
NBC News
‘The Status Quo Should Not Be an Option’: How Solar Could Transform Puerto Rico’s Future
02.27.2017
sonnen, was to break ground on its first installation on Oct. 26 in Loiza, a small town on the coast east of San Juan. The microgrid, at a church, is to include five washing machines because people had been washing their clothes in a river and had been exposed to the Leptospirosis bacteria.
Sonnen is focused on creating microgrids for shelters, clinics and community centers in areas that lack power and clean water, it said. It is working with a Puerto Rican partner, Pura Energia, which installs solar panels with sonnen batteries, and it expects to have the first five microgrid locations up and running by the end of October. Five additional microgrids are to be running in November, and a total of 15 by mid-December.
The microgrids also will provide power for refrigerators for food and medicine, and for clean water and to operate clinics.
CleanTechnica
Sonnen Working Overtime To Power Up Puerto Rico
10.25.2017
More than a month after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico’s aging electric grid, 80% of people on the island are still without power. Most are also without access to clean water. Two of the world leaders in solar power and microgrids — sonnen — is making heroic efforts to provide power to hospitals and other critical facilities.