Western Puerto Rico, barrio Bucarabón, in the municipality of Maricao. DC Microgrid includes 90V direct drive to power two cookers and a SunPumps pump, 24V direct drive circuit to power a cooker and SunStar fridge, and a 12V nickel iron battery kit.
Nestled in the beautiful mountains of western PR, accessible only by very windy, narrow roads full of potholes, Maricao feels a world away from the highways and cities of the Puerto Rican coast. And in fact, Maricao is the poorest municipality in all of Puerto Rico. Its economy, mostly agricultural, has been languishing for decades. When the hurricanes hit in 2017, cutting off power and the municipal water supply, it seemed like the community was being left behind completely.
That’s why in 2018, Jacqueline Perez began jumping the fence surrounding her local high school, in the neighbourhood of Bucarabón. The high school had been locked up and abandoned years ago, like hundreds of others across Puerto Rico, due to austerity measures imposed by the Obama administration. Pulling together what resources she could, Jackie used the site to provide much-needed support for her community, distributing food, water, and other essentials. Over the years her project grew as her team built a community kitchen, an off-grid solar and rainwater catchment system, a thrift store, radio station, and more. The project evolved into Fundación Bucarabón, which now owns the building, has dozens of staff and volunteers, and hosts educational programming and other support programs geared towards women and farmers in the community.
The LEF team was put in contact with Fundación Bucarabón because, despite their $50,000 solar electric system backed up with a huge (by our standards) lithium battery bank, they still struggled to run their fridge and their water pump. In January of 2023, Debbie and Alexis installed a 90V direct drive system to power a DC pump, and two insulated solar electric cookers for their kitchen. We also installed a SunStar direct drive fridge, and a nickel-iron battery kit as backup power for computers in their office.
Going forward, Fundación Bucarabón is working with us to bring more attention and funding to DC solar. Although are systems are much cheaper than conventional AC systems, even a $5,000 DC Microgrid (the cost of a fridge, battery kit, and pump with installation) is out of reach for most families in Maricao. The Department of Energy is pouring money into solar and storage kits for low income families in PR- to the tune of $30K per kit, including a $10K battery set that will need to be replaced in 5-10 years. Some of these kits are going to families in Maricao. Unfortunately, DC systems are not eligible for this funding, so we are still pursuing non-profit funding to subsidise the cost of these systems in Maricao and other poor localities. Fundación Bucarabón is an important partner in this work.
To learn more about Fundación Bucarabón and how to support their work, visit their website http://www.fundacionbucarabon.org.