Why Distributed Energy Wins Hurricane Season

Collaborators: Samson Bienstock, Eden Cherian, Richie Dhanani 

When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, the island spent 181 days, 6 hours, and 45 minutes without power, the longest blackout in U.S. history [1]. At present, four in five major outages nationwide are weather-related [2], and islands and hurricane-exposed regions feel these vulnerabilities the most. These grids depend on a handful of power plants and hundreds of miles of exposed transmission line. 

Complicating matters, most islands import their fuel at a premium with smaller grids typically burning diesel and heavy fuel oil. Larger islands such as Puerto Rico now run on imported gas alongside coal [6]. In the Bahamas, BPL raised its fuel charge by up to 163% in under a year [3]. Across the Caribbean, electricity prices average around $0.25/kWh—more than double the continental U.S. average.  Island fuel prices can even rise above $0.40/kWh in some countries [4]. 

For over a century, power has been produced the same way: generation in one place at enormous scale and then transmitted through transmission lines to consumers. Scale made this process cheap. Technologies once viable only at utility scale can now be deployed cost-effectively on-site at the local scale, allowing buildings to produce their own power and stay online when the wider grid goes dark. It's Hover Energy's mission in practice: turning the built environment into its own resilient energy source, one site at a time. 

Distributed energy resources (DERs) cut utility dependence year-round, lowering bills between storms as much as they keep the lights on during one. Puerto Rico's DOE-backed PR100 study showcases the evidence behind that case: as of 2021, the island's outages were roughly seven times more often than the U.S. average, and NREL's modeling has rooftop solar scaling from 680 MW today to as much as 5,200–6,100 MW by 2050. This is driven in large partly by residents adopting battery storage, specifically for backup power during outages [5].  

Hover Energy builds DER-powered microgrids that draw on energy sources already present in the built environment. Rooftop vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWTs) capture the wind that accelerates as it moves up and over a roof edge. Paired with solar, storage, and small-scale generators, VAWTs form a Wind-Powered Microgrid ™. Resilient and low maintenance, this system provides power that does not depend on transmission lines surviving hurricane winds. 

Since no two sites are alike, the exact energy mix Hover deploys will vary. Hover’s Formula H methodology configures the optimal set of wind, solar, storage, and control features to fit a building's roof size, weather conditions, energy needs, utility structure, and risk profile. A hospital roof in San Juan will get a completely different system than a water utility in Nashville. 

Distributed energy resources are just the start, smart controls are what really unlock the benefits. Each system is deployed with Hover Energy’s Microgrid Management System (MMS).  The MMS is the brains of the microgrid, coordinating generators, batteries, and on-site loads. Not only does the MMS select the most cost-effective energy source mixture in real-time, but it can also “island” a building, isolating the site from the main grid the instant something goes wrong and transitioning seamlessly to fully local power. That’s real-time, build-scale control that became standardized with the 2018 update to IEEE 1547, the grid interconnection standard [7]. Hover utilizes these controls  that not only keep a rooftop generator cost-effective, but also lower the bills. 

“On an island, resilience cannot stop at the property line. Building owners want a system that lowers utility bills, keeps critical operations running when the grid fails, and reduces exposure to imported fuel. When we size a microgrid with enough capacity and flexibility, that building can become more than a protected site. It can become an energy asset that supports the grid and helps the surrounding community recover faster.” 

AJ Perkins, Hawaiʻi Microgrid and Energy Resilience Strategist 

None of this replaces the grid. Rather, it provides the grid with much needed flexibility. Buildings that make and store their own power mean less load pulling on an already strained power network. Hover Energy is partnered with utilities like E.ON in the U.K. on realizing these mutual benefits. 

“On an island, islanding isn’t a design feature — it’s the whole point. A properly designed microgrid has to detect the grid fault, disconnect cleanly, and carry its critical loads on its own generation and storage without anyone flipping a switch. For a hurricane-prone site like Grand Cayman, that means sizing for the storm, not the average day. We’ve lived through Ivan. Resilience here isn’t a talking point, it’s a memory.” 

Curtis D. Eldemire, Broker/Owner, Tropical Real Estate Ltd., and independent public sector adviser, Grand Cayman 

Those partnerships already reach the places this matters most: a classroom in London, a water utility in Nashville, Hawaii Construction & Design Corporation on islands that already know what is at stake when the grid goes down. Turning the built environment into its own power source is not a future state, it's already running, in exactly the places the next storm is forming.  

Sources: 

[1] “The Great Puerto Rico Blackout.” The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/national/puerto-rico-hurricane-recovery/ 

[2] “Weather-Related Power Outages Rising.” Climate Central. https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters/weather-related-power-outages-rising 

[3] “BPL: Pain of Failure, $38m in Arrears Left, Despite 163% Hike.” The Tribune (Bahamas). https://www.tribune242.com/news/2026/jul/06/bpl-pain-failure-38m-arrears-left-despite-163-hike/ 

[4] “Caribbean: A Clean Energy, Resilient Hub.” World Bank Blogs. https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/latinamerica/caribbean-clean-energy-resilient-hub 

[5] PR100: Puerto Rico Grid Resilience and Transitions to 100% Renewable Energy Study. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) / U.S. Department of Energy. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy24osti/88615.pdf 

[6] “Puerto Rico Electricity Generation Mix.” Low-Carbon Power. https://lowcarbonpower.org/region/Puerto_Rico 

[7] IEEE 1547-2018, Standard for Interconnection and Interoperability of Distributed Energy Resources with Associated Electric Power Systems Interfaces. IEEE Standards Association. https://standards.ieee.org/standard/1547-2018.html