Alex Honnold's Foundation Goes to Puerto Rico to Support Solar Power Micro-grid

This week Alex Honnold's foundation, which is focused on bringing sustainable power to communities throughout the world to create more equitable living conditions, was in Puerto Rico working with the Casa Pueblo organization to bring a solar power micro-grid to the mountain town of Adjuntas.

Puerto Rico's power grid was badly compromised when Hurricane Maria hammered it with brutal winds, rain, and flooding in September 2017. In Adjuntas, a town located to the north of the metro area of Ponce, there had already been intermittent power failures and there emerged a growing sentiment that they should be more self-sufficient. Now, in the wake of Hurricane Maria devastating the island and the power grid, the people of Adjuntas began working with the Honnold Foundation to build Puerto Rico's first cooperatively-built, community-managed solar micro-grid. This 220 kW solar micro-grid is intended to bring a degree of self-sufficiency to power 17 local businesses, with more ambitious plans also in the works.

The Honnold Foundation also worked with electric car company Rivian to provide second-life vehicle batteries for energy storage at the Adjuntas micro-grid. And the solar panels to power the batteries are donated by REC group.

• Honnold Foundation

UPDATE
The Honnold Foundation, which collects donations and provides grants to recipients whose work will forward the foundation's mission of bringing sustainable power to communities in need, has since announced several new grantees for Spring 2020, including solar power initiatives in Ecuador, Brazil, and Cambodia.