Loíza Fe: Futuro de Energía para Villa Cañona
This project concluded in February 2023.
Climable, in collaboration with Clean Water Action, teamed up to bring a reliable source of energy to the Comité Pro-Desarrollo Villa Cañona, a nonprofit in Loíza, Puerto Rico. Loíza was hit hard by Hurricane Irma in September 2017 and a week later by Hurricane María. People there went without power for over 6 months. The death toll in Loíza was especially high because of the difficulty of refrigerating insulin in an area where many people have diabetes. The Comité organized to get meals to their neighbors and serve as a command center for distribution of goods to the people that needed them.
Rafael Rivera Rivera (Rafa) is a Board Member of the Comité Pro-Desarrollo Villa Cañona, and one Climable's main partners for our clean energy project.
The fine folks of Villa Cañona worked alongside us to electrify their community center with clean energy. The center was damaged by a tree falling on it during the hurricanes; as a result, the building underwent structural reinforcement to accomodate a new roof. Together, we added solar panels and battery storage so that this center can be a resource to residents in an emergency.
Climable and Clean Water Action hosted a series of fundraisers to pay for the solar panels and batteries needed to make this community center self-sufficient. We are pleased to announce our fundraising goals were met in 2022 and the project became operational in February 2023! We are grateful to everyone who donated to this important work and we are are thrilled that the Comité Pro-Desarrollo Villa Cañona’s community center now has clean and reliable electricity that is available to them in normal times and in the times when they need it most!
The beautiful new solar panels keeping the community center’s lights on! Image: Courtesy of Carlos Cruz Quiñones.
The batteries are key to ensuring reliable electricity even if the grid experiences a power outage. Image: Courtesy of Carlos Cruz Quiñones.
Climable team member Jen meeting with representatives from the Board of the Comité Pro-Desarrollo Villa Cañona in February 2020. Here, they are deep in discussion about the types and sizes of appliances they have planned for the center and it’s build out of a communal kitchen. Image: Climable.