Powering Puerto Rico back to life, with PRIDE

Not another one! When will they stop?

我可以而且应该谈到今年的四（和计数）毁灭性飓风：哈维;伊尔玛;何塞;和玛丽亚。但是，事实上，我的愤怒是在贸易报刊文章的过剩，甚至一般的商业新闻，解释如何在加勒比海地区和波多黎各，特别是破坏电力系统，应该更加分散，可再生能源进行重建驱动的基础。

It is not that I don't agree with this point-of-view — of course, I do. I am one of many people in our industry who for years have looked covetously at Hawaii and Puerto Rico as the places where a comprehensive clean energy system will have its first break-out — its "day in the sun," so to speak.

If you are reading this article on GreenBiz, I am sure you agree with me as well, and that it is intuitive to you, as it is to me, that this is the only logical outcome for Puerto Rico now that its antiquated storm-vulnerable electric grid has been torn down.

与微电网的更加分散，太阳能驱动的网络替代目前失事格，我们都同意，会更便宜，更快地构建，与通过腐败财力的浪费显著的机会较小。这样做的权利，其结果必然是低得多的运营成本和波多黎各捉襟见肘终端能源的消费者更民主，更公平的结果的系统。

A more decentralized, solar-driven network of microgrids would be cheaper and quicker to build, with significantly less opportunity for financial waste through corruption.

Lest I forget, it also will improve local air quality, provide sound and smell abatement against all the generators currently on the island and, to the extent we can forge this clean energy system into a new business paradigm, will represent a major step forward in the fight against global warming.

Not shabby.

Yet, notwithstanding all those positive qualities of the alternative outcome, it won't happen if we don't get outside the green echo chamber in which all of us exist to persuade someone who matters that we have a better plan.

就在我们发言，在加勒比地区的能源现状的势力订购了尽可能多的电线杆，因为他们可以舀起在美国本土，因为他们猛冲下来的路径重建完全相同的风暴暴露，进口燃料的依赖电网风暴之前就已经存在的系统。网格是托马斯·爱迪生会认定为“国家的最先进的” - 在1917年。

Being heard with our alternative energy plan in this case, as in most cases, begins with money or, more precisely, committed capital. That leads us to PREPA — the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority.

Because American citizens are suffering on Puerto Rico, and will be suffering for as long as they lack ready access to reliable electricity, let's be blunt with each other: As long as PREPA is in charge of electricity delivery on Puerto Rico, there will be no alternative energy plan. PREPA simply will seek to rebuild its 20th-century system.

波多黎各人，平均收入低于一半的美国中位数收入和花费超过两倍的能量。

But is PREPA in a position even to do that? It is saddled with something like $10 billion in debt already, and the Puerto Rican government, with massive debt issues of its own, is in no position to underwrite PREPA. PREPA's debt represents about $7,000 for each PREPA customer and there is no possibility, in its existing dire economic situation, that the energy consumers of Puerto Rico can bear that debt burden.

No, PREPA, and its debts, need to be set aside and replaced by a privately capitalized power company charged with creating an alternative type of power system for Puerto Rico — much like New York State a few years back responded to the overwhelming debt burden of Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO) by replacing it with LIPA. Except, in Puerto Rico's case, the idea would be to shift the mandate to supply power on Puerto Rico from a public authority to a freshly capitalized private company rather than vice versa, as it was in New York.

这个“新公司”将在我的脑海里，是绿色的，但不是“纯粹的”绿色。当然，在城镇和波多黎各的农村地区，这将满足分布式太阳能驱动的微电网的愿景，我们所有的份额。但在人口密集的圣胡安区，重点将是小规模的液化天然气或压缩天然气为燃料的硬化城市基于网格的系统上。让我们面对它，我们都希望是纯绿色。但是你到了太阳能的间歇昼夜的问题，甚至之前，你有问题，太阳需要的水平空间，也许在圣胡安本身无法访问的程度。

Even with natural gas energizing the capital, this alternative, hybrid system would be a heck of a lot cleaner than the fuel oil and coal-fired plants that historically has dominated the Puerto Rican generation mix. This new hybrid system would be much cheaper to build and vastly cheaper to operate, but the fundamental question remains — which Yann Brandt has asked repeatedly in hisSolar Wake-Upcommentary — who pays? Our alternative energy system may be diametrically opposite to the traditional PREPA system in many ways but they share one key trait in common: They both rely on a paying customer base to stay solvent.

如果我们不绿色的回音室，我们所有人都存在说服别人谁是重要的，我们有一个更好的计划外得到它不会发生。

There is a simple truism in the poverty NGO world: "It's expensive being poor." Puerto Rico bears that out: Puerto Ricans, on average, earn less than half the median American income and spend more than twice as much on energy. At more than $400 a month, energy spending represents about 25 percent of average household income. Given that America writ large has tripped into economic recession every time total energy costs approach 7 percent of total disposable income, it is not hard to see the contribution onerous energy costs have made to Puerto Rico's continued economic distress.

因此，“支付能力”是最重要的，它为我的最后一次重大的调整我们的能源替代计划的最令人信服的理由。由于美国消费者，在一般情况下，花费在运输燃料的整个能源支出的大约三分之二，我们需要从汽油动力车辆把他们的运输依赖于电，同时也捕捉到访问可用的波多黎各人的巨大潜力的经营结余好用的买球外围app网站随之而来的环境效益，在本地和全球范围内，没有尾气排放。在宏观的偿债水平，获得访问带来港币$ 24十亿的一年的波多黎各的健康部分目前花费在进口化石燃料应该给波多黎各的债权人足够的激励来支持新的替代能源计划。

中油勘探开发，因此，必须在规定的任务创造全岛智能电动汽车充电网络服务的家庭和企业相邻电气系统的一部分。存在几乎无处不在的次优双能量输送系统 - 汽油车进入，电进入建筑物 - 需要通过一个智能延长线，使车辆到电网以及电网对车辆充电集成。

波多黎各可以成为第一个达到一个相互加强，化石燃料的光，完全集成能量系统。

Perhaps the Newco, which attempts to achieve all of this, should be called the Puerto Rico Integrated Dual Energy Company — PRIDE, for short.

So who amongst us wants to step up and capitalize PRIDE?