I was wondering why I didn't hear about Puerto Rico blackouts as much as I used to! Blackouts are routine in Puerto Rico, where aging power plants are constantly on the edge of collapse. By the time this summer ends, the power will go out 93 times, according to a forecast from the island’s grid operator, LUMA. Via The Washington Post:

But a solution is rising to alleviate the sticky, summer misery. Roughly 1 in 10 Puerto Rican homes now have a battery and solar array for backup power. The batteries don’t just protect the homeowners who purchased and installed them: They’ve also become a crucial source of backup power for the entire island grid.

A network of 69,000 home batteries can generate as much electricity as a small natural gas turbine during an emergency, temporarily covering about 2 percent of the island’s energy needs when things go wrong. For a system that’s always in crisis mode, that buffer can make a big difference. LUMA, which through agreements with homeowners can use stored power in emergencies, has already called in the backup batteries 30 times this year to ease shortages.

“It has very, very certainly prevented more widespread outages,” said Daniel Haughton, LUMA’s transmission and distribution planning director. “In the instances that we had to [cut power], it was for a much shorter duration: A four-hour outage became a one- or two-hour outage.”

Puerto Rico’s experience offers a glimpse into the future for the rest of the United States, where batteries are starting to play a big role in keeping the lights on. Authorities in Texas, California and New England have credited home batteries with preventing blackouts during summer energy crunches. As power grids across the country groan under the increasing strain of new data centers, factories and EVs, batteries offer a way for homeowners to protect themselves — and all of their neighbors — from the threat of outages.