Generac lands $440 million contract to boost Puerto Rico power grid. Here's the company's plan.

Generac Power Systems will provide battery storage systems and other equipment under a $440 million U.S. Department of Energy electric reliability improvement project in Puerto Rico.

The initiative aims to provide rooftop solar systems and backup battery power to up to 40,000 single-family households in areas that experience frequent and prolonged power outages. The work is focused on helping very low-income households or those with a resident who requires reliable electric service to power medical equipment, according to the DOE.

Puerto Rico's aging electric power infrastructure has been repeatedly damaged by hurricanes in recent years. The Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund award for the solar and battery projects is part of a $1 billion in federal infrastructure-improvement funding that was approved in 2022, shortly after Hurricane Fiona knocked out power across the island. The program aims for Puerto Rico to transition completely to renewable energy by 2050.

Generac was selected to participate in the program along with solar power companies Sunnova Energy Corp. and Sunrun Inc. Each will receive a share of the $440 million grant. In addition, five Puerto Rican nonprofits and cooperatives that will receive contracts totaling $40 million.

Anne Hoskins, Generac's senior vice president for policy and market development, called the award a validation of the Waukesha-based company's push in recent years to expand beyond its traditional business as a provider of backup generator power to focus on batteries and local distributed energy products like solar power as solutions for improving the reliability and resilience of the electric supply.

"What's exciting is it's just really brings to life the strategy that we have been pursuing," Hoskins said.

"It demonstrates what we've known, which is that as we've had more problems with reliability and resiliency due to climate change, other weather issues and just old distribution systems, that distributed resources, be they solar, or batteries, or generators, or thermostats with the right kind of technology controls can play a really important role for the consumers who have that have those products and also for the grid."

Details of the contract and its final value for Generac are expected to be finalized by the end of the year, and work is expected to start in spring. Hoskins said Generac has not yet identified the solar company with which it will partner on its installations.

Hoskins said Generac's proposal benefited from the company's already established relationships with local nonprofits many of which date to the company's work installing generators on the island in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2016.

"We have developed relationships with organizations in Puerto Rico who are trusted and will be really important as we try to reach people that have not had this technology before and will really depend on it." she said. "We think that was an important element of our proposal."

Those partners will be responsible for community outreach, installation, workforce development and other on-the-ground activities.

The award for the work in Puerto Rico was announced about two weeks after Generac received a $50 million DOE grant to install battery storage and high-tech thermostats in about 2,000 low-income households in Massachusetts to optimize residents' use of electric heat pumps, while demonstrating how its technology can ease stress on the electric grid during times of high demand.

Both awards will do a lot to broaden recognition of Generac's distributed energy products, Hoskins said.

"It's very exciting," she said. "We've been putting our strategy into action, but these awards are quite visible and it's helpful to be working with the Department of Energy on them."

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Generac battery system to improve Puerto Rico's damaged power grid