Reimagining Puerto Rico’s Energy Future: A Floating Wind Vision Rooted in Equity

If Brief:

• As part of Yale Center for Business and Environment’s Clean and Equitable Energy Development (CEED) Certificate Program, one team designed a floating offshore wind project off the southeastern coast of Puerto Rico.
• Their vision is a 1,200-megawatt installation that meets both the island’s pressing energy needs and its demands for justice, resilience, and self-determination.
• The Yale Clean Energy Forum interviewed Allison Pilcher, Haley Kirtland, and Hechen Liu, some members of the team.

 

Climate Solutions Shaped by Communities

 

Rather than viewing renewable energy purely as a technological challenge, the team approached it as a social one. Public engagement is central to their strategy, with plans for a community benefits agreement that prioritizes local hiring, training programs, and infrastructure investment. Recognizing Puerto Rico’s chronic power outages and fragile grid that have been exacerbated by hurricanes and underinvestment, the team proposes reinvesting project revenues into grid modernization, with a focus on improving energy access in low-income communities. This integrated model links clean energy generation with more stable, equitable delivery systems.

 

Advancing Gender Equity in the Energy Sector

 

The project also aims to shift gender dynamics in the offshore energy workforce. Despite women comprising more than half of Puerto Rico’s population, they remain underrepresented in technical energy roles, with women holding only 21% of roles in the wind industry. The team’s proposal includes funding for childcare infrastructure and targeted workforce development for women, inspired by the island’s grassroots solar movement, which gained traction after Hurricane Maria. By reducing barriers like caregiving responsibilities and offering training in grid management and clean energy operations, the project seeks to create long-term pathways for women in the wind industry.

 

Designing for Ecology and Sustainability

 

Environmental integrity is another priority. The team carefully considered ecological factors, including the migration paths of birds along the Atlantic Flyway and the preservation of marine habitats. Turbine placement and height are adjusted to minimize disruptions to biodiversity, with an eye toward long-term sustainability and conservation partnerships. Their strategy also emphasizes sustainability and labor equity, giving preference to suppliers with strong ESG practices, union agreements, and emissions reduction commitments.

 

Navigating Permitting and Policy

 

The team chose Puerto Rico because the island’s territorial status grants it control over its own coastal waters, unlike U.S. states that have to navigate federal leasing and permitting processes. This legal distinction allows for earlier and more localized decision-making, making floating offshore wind more viable than onshore projects constrained by limited land availability. Still, despite its creative promise, the project confronts real-world constraints. The lack of designated federal lease areas for wind development around Puerto Rico remains a significant barrier, requiring policy action such as the proposed Offshore Wind for Territories Act. The highly politicized, novel, and sensitive nature of wind technologies also offers its own sets of challenges. In the meantime, the team outlined a path forward by securing leases in territorial waters through Puerto Rico’s Department of Natural and Environmental Resources and Planning Board.

 

Building an Equitable Transition

 

At its core, this project is about redefining what energy development looks like when equity, ecology, and local governance are prioritized from the start. The team used the flexibility of a hypothetical project to ask deeper questions: Can the same clean energy policies also reduce inequality? Can infrastructure be a tool for empowerment, not just efficiency?

Their answer: yes, but only if justice is built in from day one.