By Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Energy Department said on Thursday it is offering a conditional loan guarantee of up to $861 million for two utility-scale solar-energy projects in Puerto Rico that are expected to boost energy security after recent hurricanes severely damaged the U.S. territory's grid.
The conditional commitment from the department's Loan Programs Office goes to Clean Flexible Energy LLC, to finance construction of two solar photovoltaic farms equipped with battery storage and two standalone battery energy storage systems, the LPO said. The projects will be built in the coastal communities of Salinas and Guayama in south Puerto Rico.
The projects comprise 200 megawatts of photovoltaic solar panels and up to 285 MW of stand-alone battery energy storage capacity. The solar arrays will power about 43,000 homes, it said.
Clean Flexible Energy is an indirect subsidiary of AES Corp and TotalEnergies Holdings USA Inc, and managed under a joint-venture agreement.
Jigar Shah, the LPO's director, said the projects will include new assemblies developed by AES and solar energy innovator 5B that are easy to quickly flatten should a hurricane threaten.
The "technology basically allows you to put these units on the ground in record time," Shah said in an interview. "So when you find out a hurricane is coming through, you can put these units on the ground, and then that makes them less susceptible to missile damage, which is the biggest challenge in a hurricane when things are blowing around, it really destroys a lot of projects."
AES said it had no comments beyond those of the LPO.
Shah said the advanced systems should be more easily insurable and be a model for solar power across the Caribbean and other places vulnerable to heavy storms.
Hurricane Maria severely damaged Puerto Rico's grid in 2017 and between 3,000 and 4,600 people died in the aftermath. Among the worst-hit communities were ones with elderly and low-income people. In some mountain towns, the power was out for 11 months. The territory's grid was hammered again in 2022 by another storm.
Besides financing aid, the Energy Department also has a $1-billion Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund that President Joe Biden signed into law in late 2022 to supply rooftop solar panels to the territory. On Thursday it announced a $325-million funding opportunity for solar and battery systems expected to be built in places such as health and treatment centers and common areas within multi-family housing properties.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Rod Nickel)
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