Microgrid Story - San Juan, Puerto Rico

My flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico, on New Year’s Eve was a personal and professional awakening. As the jet airliner descended over the darkened city towards the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, the magnitude of the blackout was evident. With over 3.2 million people, the island was engulfed in darkness due to a grid power blackout. The irony of my journey was not lost on me, as I was flying into a grid blackout to evaluate the potential of a microgrid for a client. This personal connection, my direct experience of the blackout, made me realize that more and larger microgrids will be crucial to protect against such widespread catastrophic grid power outages in the future.