Empowering Culebra

As we were approved a $4 million grant from Economic Development Administration (EDA), the project expanded its scope with a goal to provide up to 2,695 solar panels with hurricane-resistant racking, AC inverter batteries, metering, and appurtenances, that will allow to solarize most of the small business and non-profit organizations in Culebra. This will allow for the small island to become sustainable in terms of energy but also in terms of economic development, as these infrastructures will guarantee economic activity among the islanders. It will also create construction and installation jobs in the short term and potential maintenance and repair entrepreneurship activity in the long term.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are three areas where Fundación Comunitaria de Puerto Rico wants to strengthen inside our institution and within the projects that we support and empower. This project will be no different, we seek to incorporate gender diversity and provide equitable access to the benefits of the project.

We believe the project will strengthen the community capital in Culebra: human, social, physical, financial and ecological and; we also believe that we will be supporting the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: gender equality, affordable and clean energy, industry-innovation- infrastructure, sustainable cities and communities, climate action and finally, partnerships for the goals.

During most part of the Summer and the months of August and September, we continued our community meetings to engage the community-at-large with this project. We’ve also been identifying the potential sites and the feasibility of the development of micro-grids on them. Some of the sites might need an environmental impact assessment for which we’ll work directly with EDA and potentially EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). We foresee to start on-site construction by the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020.

As our planning phase continues, we had previously engaged Prudential and Global Giving with a support of $220,000; we recently engaged an anonymous donor who granted $25,000. The $245,000 coming from philanthropic partners will be used to match the $1 million match requirement from EDA. We are still needing $755,000 to match.

The municipal island of Culebra is located to the northeast of our mainland with a population of approximately 1,400. The island received proper energy supply by March 2019, almost a year and a half after Hurricane María hit our shores. Since we had already empowered, through a participatory process, the first solar community in Toro Negro – Ciales, where 20 energy systems form the community’s solar microgrid providing energy to 28 residences that benefit more than 70 residents, we set a goal to transform Culebra’s energy system into a renewable energy system.