Adjuntas: A Solar Community

Since 2019, the Honnold Foundation team has been working alongside Casa Pueblo to co-create Puerto Rico’s first cooperatively managed, community powered solar microgrid.

Earlier this year, we introduced the Community Solar Energy Association of Adjuntas (ACESA), a nonprofit led by the local business association that manages microgrid operations. Thanks to our friends at REC Group and Rivian, ACESA will own, maintain, and manage the 1,000 solar panels powering 18 small businesses in the center of the town of Adjuntas.

While 2020 has presented challenges for all of our partners worldwide, Casa Pueblo’s Associate Director Arturo Massol Deyá says, “We’re extremely happy here in Adjuntas […] through solidarity and community engagement, we’re in the middle of a significant transformation.”

Read HF Project Manager Cynthia Arellano’s latest trip report to learn more about the Adjuntas solar microgrid.

A Message from Alex

By Alex Honnold, Founder

I’ve been struggling to write anything that doesn’t sound inconsequential in the face of a global pandemic, so I’ll get right to the point:

Our work at the Honnold Foundation continues. This year marked our first open call for new grant partners— the first time we’ve actively asked the world to submit their best ideas. That work continues in spite of the pandemic swirling around us, and we’ll announce our new grantees in April. For me, choosing new partners is a much needed relief from the daily news, and reading grant applications is one of the most heartening parts of my day. There’s something incredibly refreshing about reading peoples’ best ideas for using solar energy to do something useful for their community, and all of us at the Honnold Foundation are excited to share those stories with you soon. 

Energy access is essential, and our mission of promoting solar energy for a more equitable world is as important now as ever. 

In the coming months and years communities will be tested in new and challenging ways (I write that thinking about COVID-19, but it applies more broadly to our changing climate as well.) Solar energy access is a powerful way to boost resilience— it creates jobs, reduces environmental impact, and increases self-sufficiency and self-determination for marginalized communities. It’s important work— meaningful enough to me that I started a foundation to support it while I still lived in a van full time, seven years ago. And while it can be hard to look past our current crisis, energy access remains essential. 

There’s no ask here. If you’ve supported the Honnold Foundation in some way in the past, we want you to know we appreciate you, and, and that we remain as committed to our work as ever. This year we plan to give more than $800,000 to our nonprofit partners around the world. In Puerto Rico, we’ve been working with Casa Pueblo to build the island’s first cooperatively managed solar microgrid, and after a year of planning and community organizing, the first solar panels were installed on February 28th. 

So in a day that’s probably full of gloomy news, enjoy this photo and know that there is still positive change being made in the world. 

Thanks. And stay safe out there, 

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The first solar panels in the Adjuntas, Puerto Rico microgrid, installed on the roofs of local business. These panels are mounted with an innovative new racking system designed to withstand the 165 mile per hour winds associated with Category 5 hurricanes. (Photo: Casa Pueblo)

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Community Engagement with Casa Pueblo

The Honnold Foundation and Casa Pueblo have been hard at work on making Puerto Rico’s newest cooperatively-managed and community-owned microgrid a reality. Soon, Rivian’s second life batteries will be used as the energy storage solution for a microgrid that powers small businesses in the town of Adjuntas— ensuring climate and disaster resilience for the heart of the community.

For the past year, the Honnold Foundation has worked side by side with the community to develop an energy solution that addresses local needs. Providing the materials and engineering expertise is just one part of establishing a community-owned microgrid.

Casa Pueblo

Adjuntas, PR

Honnold Foundation Project Manager Cynthia Arellano has spent extensive time in Puerto Rico, working with Casa Pueblo founders Tinti Deyá Díaz and Alexis Massol González, along with their son and current Associate Director, Dr. Arturo Massol-Deyá. With their support and guidance, Honnold Foundation has gotten to know the small business community in Adjuntas, and learned more about their vision for a solar-powered island.

Founders Tinti Deyá Díaz and Alexis Massol González

Dr. Arturo Massol-Deyá, Associate Director of Casa Pueblo

Cynthia Arellano, Project Manager

Arturo introduces Honnold Foundation, Rivian, and the microgrid project to the Adjuntas community.

Alex Honnold meets with community members during the team’s initial planning visit.

After a series of community meetings, it became clear that solar panels would have the greatest impact for small businesses in the center of Adjuntas. Not only are these businesses central to the Adjuntas economy, but in natural disasters, they become hubs for community services. In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, local business owners powered up diesel generators to provide families with food, cold storage for medical supplies, charging stations for cell phones, and other critical support services.

Ultimately, Adjuntas’ residents determined that the microgrid’s solar energy should be owned and distributed by the community via a newly formed nonprofit, ACESA. ACESA will provide small businesses with energy at a reduced rate. After reinvesting some profits into microgrid maintenance and repair, ACESA plans to invest earnings into social good initiatives throughout the town of Adjuntas.

Meet some of ACESA’s leadership team and Casa Pueblo’s staff, pictured below.

Gustavo Irizarry, Lucy's Pizza Owner (Copy)

Jose Colon, Digital Point Owner (Copy)

Abraham Gonzalez, Hospice Center Owner (Copy)

Wanda Vasquez, Hardware Store Owner (Copy)

Tommy Barcelo II, Property Owner (Copy)

Walter Acevedo, Bakery Owner (Copy)

Rebecca, Casa Pueblo Staff (Copy)

Jorgie, Casa Pueblo Staff (Copy)

We’re delighted to play a role in building a brighter future for Adjuntas, and immensely proud to work alongside the talented teams at Casa Pueblo and Rivian. Check out a few more photos from our time in Puerto Rico, and make a gift today to support Casa Pueblo, the city of Adjuntas, and future Honnold Foundation community partners.

Donate Now

Photos by Ben Moon and the Honnold Foundation

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Solar Energy and Social Justice

By Emily Peterson, Summer Intern 2019

Are you interested in an internship with the Honnold Foundation? We offer remote and office-based internships on a semester schedule. Follow us on social media or join the mailing list to be the first to hear about new opportunities.

At the Honnold Foundation, we believe the people most affected by climate change are those already disadvantaged in some way because of factors like race, income, and gender. Increasing energy access using solar can help change the trajectory of climate change worldwide while increasing resiliency and power on a community level. 

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The community of Adjuntas celebrating a solar-powered future for Puerto Rico. Photo by Ruben Salgado Escudero

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Typically, regions that have boomed economically have done so at a high environmental cost: burning coal to power factories, clearcutting forests and draining wetlands to build homes and shopping centers, and using gasoline to fuel cars. In areas that have not undergone this economic boom, an opportunity exists to change the parallel relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation. In Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, the Honnold Foundation is partnering with Casa Pueblo, a community-based organization focused on environmental conservation and sustainable development, to create a community-owned solar microgrid.

Powered by solar energy since 1999, Casa Pueblo understands the power of solar to drive economic and environmental change. In Adjuntas, businesses typically spend about a third of their operational costs on energy. “Energy independence means that people will be able to produce their own energy for their own productive activities… instead of paying someone else” says Arturo Massol-Deyá, Associate Director of Casa Pueblo. “And when they’re doing that, we’re promoting economic activation. Now we can talk about dealing with poverty levels in the area… And the beauty of this is that instead of us generating greenhouse gases and hurting nature that eventually pays back with hurricanes or droughts or other issues related to climate change, now we can reduce our ecological footprint.” 

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A volunteer installer at work on a GRID Alternatives project in the Navajo Nation. Photo by Irene Yee.

For longtime Honnold Foundation partner GRID Alternatives, solar education also has measurable social justice implications. In addition to installing solar on homes to reduce energy costs and dependence on electric utilities, the organization teaches community members how to install and repair solar panels themselves. A similar model is in the works with a new Foundation partner, the North End Woodward Community Coalition (NEWCC) in Detroit. Long after the initial solar panels are installed, members of these communities have technical skills that can continue to make their neighborhoods more self-sufficient and environmentally resilient. 

At the Honnold Foundation, we believe that solar energy can create a more equitable world– by increasing the economic resiliency of marginalized communities, supporting education and health for communities of color, and creating inexpensive power for homes who wouldn’t be able to pay for electricity otherwise. Increasing solar energy access is a powerful tool to address both environmental and social justice issues, and the Honnold Foundation partners with organizations who utilize solar to its full potential.  

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