The Department of Energy announced Friday several actions totaling over a billion dollars to help boost grid reliability and fund clean energy systems in Puerto Rico, which has faced a number of power outages due to an unreliable electric grid. 

Most recently, most of the island was left in the dark on New Year’s Eve. It has suffered more than 200 blackouts since 2022, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said earlier this month.

On Friday, the DOE announced two conditional commitments and one loan to Puerto Rico to replace its fossil fuel generation assets with solar and battery storage systems through 2032. 

One of the actions includes a $584.5 million loan guarantee to subsidiaries of Convergent Energy and Power, which will help finance a solar photovoltaic system that uses solar panels to generate electricity and an integrated battery energy storage system. It will also build three stand-alone battery energy storage system projects across Puerto Rico — a system that stores power until the grid needs it at a certain time. 

The department said the solar facility would deliver about 200,000 megawatt-hours of energy yearly into Puerto Rico’s grid, and the battery storage system could provide up to 900 MWh of storage capacity. 

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The other two announcements include a conditional commitment for a loan guarantee of up to $133.6 million to YFN Yabucoa Solar LLC to help finance a solar photovoltaic system and a battery storage system in the municipality of Yabucoa, Puerto Rico. 

The second conditional commitment is a loan guarantee of up to $489.4 million to Amanecer Puerto Rico LLC to help finance Project Amanecer, a project consisting of three stand-alone battery energy storage systems and a solar photovoltaic system.