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Paper short abstract:

Adoption of community energy projects has increased substantially in Puerto Rico after the 2017 hurricanes that destroyed the power grid and a slow recovery rooted in a complex political status. I study the role of community energy projects on education using empirical methodology.

Paper long abstract:

Puerto Rico was hit by two major hurricanes that led to devastating impacts in September 2017. Hurricane Irma’s and Maria’s sustained rains and winds caused more than 1 billion damages in housing and public infrastructure and destruction of the power grid lines. Several years and tropical storms later, energy has not been fully restored across the archipelago. The political status of Puerto Rico has delayed recovery, as it impedes to fully access to US federal funds, like states do, and to receive loans from international financial institutions.

Community energy projects adoption has increased substantially in the face of unreliable energy distribution, low power quality, and persistent outages especially in the most vulnerable, impoverished, and rural areas in Puerto Rico. In this study, I explore the role of community energy projects on human capital. The literature suggests several potential mechanisms of the effects of electrification on education including improved electricity access from households and schools, more study time at school and home, and financial availability for adoption of electricity storage projects. In the proposed paper, I use Hurricane Maria as a random shock to account for selection on adoption. Using open data source of community storage projects installed at public facilities and school tests scores from standardized exams, I follow a Regression Discontinuity (RD) to control for potential spatial correlation. This study aims to generate evidence on the role of decentralized electrification, that emerges as a way of addressing climate change challenges from a self-governance and collective perspective.