AMANESER trains residents of lower-income Puerto Rican communities to install and maintain their own solar and battery backup systems on community buildings — building energy security from the ground up, one local group at a time.

When Hurricane Maria knocked out power across Puerto Rico in 2017, hundreds of thousands of people spent months without electricity. In the remote mountain community of Jayuya, residents initially dismissed the idea that they could ever afford solar. A few years later, they had installed their own systems — and when Hurricane Fiona hit in 2021, their community went three weeks without grid power while their solar systems kept running. That track record is the foundation of AMANESER’s model: not installing systems for communities, but training and accompanying community groups to install and maintain these systems for themselves.

AMANESER currently supports local groups in seven municipalities, with three more in formation. The CO2 Foundation funding supports strengthening those groups and scaling the model further. The team plans to produce a written and video installation manual, train one or two technical experts per municipality, and facilitate monthly leadership development sessions for local group leaders.

In parallel, AMANESER is completing a pilot initiative called Santuarios de Luz (Light Sanctuaries) in partnership with the Disciples of Christ Church, which has 105 congregations across Puerto Rico. Solar systems installed at congregations in Toa Baja, San Juan, Cayey, and Guaynabo will serve as community hubs during emergencies, providing phone charging and medicine refrigeration to anyone in the surrounding area.

The model is designed for communities that cannot access solar through the private market and have largely been passed over by the limited pool of federal low-income solar funding. AMANESER offers a mutual aid-based alternative that builds local knowledge and relationships alongside physical infrastructure. The organization’s steering committee is majority Puerto Rican and majority women, and most members came to the organization through its local groups.

CO2 Foundation sees this project as a compelling example of community-centered resilience work with relevance well beyond Puerto Rico. As extreme weather increasingly cuts communities off from outside support for days or weeks at a time, models that build local capacity before disaster strikes will only become more valuable.