The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has closed a $489.4 million loan with Dawn Puerto Rico, a subsidiary of Pattern Energy, to fund 220 MW of battery energy storage systems in Puerto Rico.
The facility will be located in Arecibo and Santa Isabel and will use battery technology made in the United States, according to the DOE’s Energy Domain Financing Office. The agency did not specify the energy capacity of the systems, expressed in MWh, or their duration of discharge.
The DOE estimates that batteries will be able to provide backup electricity to more than 100,000 customers during periods of supply shortages. It also estimates that it will prevent approximately 13 million cumulative hours of service interruptions, taking as a reference the network operational data for 2025.
The loan would reduce the electricity costs of Puerto Rican households and businesses by about $312.5 million over the next 25 years, according to US government projections.
The funding was restructured following a review by the current US administration. In addition to the two battery projects, the agreement provides for a way for the possible future development of dispatchable electricity generation powered by natural gas. The DOE did not report the power, location or timetable of that eventual infrastructure.
The closed operation changes the scope of the conditional commitment announced by the DOE in January 2025. That proposal included three independent BESS systems with a joint power of 180 MW and a capacity of 720 MWh, in addition to a 70 MWac photovoltaic plant with integrated storage.
The new announcement raises total storage power to 220 MW, but no longer includes photovoltaic installations. Nor does it detail how the power is distributed between the projects of Arecibo and Santa Isabel.
Since 2025, the DOE has issued several emergency orders under section 202(c) of the Federal Energy Act to authorize generation and other actions aimed at maintaining Puerto Rico’s electricity supply during periods of high demand and during hurricane season.
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