Solar lights and cell phone chargers are now $1or less production costs and selling around the world for $5 or less retail. Add bicycle generators and you have independent indigenous emergency power now, day or night. AA battery to car battery and better microgrids.
It is conceivable that we could crowd fund a basic emergency electrical system (lights, cell phones or radio, computers) for Puerto Rico (as well as the other islands destroyed by the recent hurricanes) within less time than the established grid can come back on line.
There are examples of islands which are planning and working toward 100% renewable power:
El Hierro, 7,000 people, one of the Spanish Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, uses wind and pumped hydro energy storage to supply 50% of its power
http://www.dw.com/en/renewable-energy-on-el-hierro/av-38694579
Kodiak Island, 15,000 people, in Alaska has been running its grid with wind and hydro power since 2012
http://www.sierraclub.org/pennsylvania/southeastern/blog/2017/05/kodiak-island-100-renewables
Samsø, 4,000 people, in Denmark has spent over the last decade moving towards zero carbon with wind, solar, and biomass
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/feb/24/energy-positive-how-denmarks-sams-island-switched-to-zero-carbon
Bornholm, 14,000 people, also in Denmark, is working towards a CO2-neutral society based on renewable and sustainable energy by 2025 and was the site of the EU’s Grid 2.0 project
http://www.globalislands.net/greenislands/docs/denmark_44043147.pdf
http://www.ecogrid.dk/en/home_uk
and Hawaii, 1,400,000 people, has the goal of using renewables like wind, sun, ocean, geothermal, and bioenergy to supply 70 percent or more of Hawaii’s energy needs by 2030
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Hawaii#Hawaii_Clean_Energy_Initiative
How about an ad hoc global online design charette and hackathon to rebuild Anguilla, Barbuda, the British Virgin Islands, St. Martin / St. Maarten, the US Virgin Islands, and Turks and Caicos, Dominica… ?
That might be a good thought experiment. Perhaps we could run it through the Small Island and Developing States UN organization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Island_Developing_States
Lead the way! Find a company that says “Yes we can”. Vet them. Start the crowd funding.
A friend read what I wrote and called LLBean this morning. She reports that “they had already had many calls. People wanting to buy the radios,etc. and send them. They have given money to the red cross.” She then called the Puerto Rican Representative’s office in DC who are suggesting that donations go through http://unidosporpuertorico.com/en/
I am not the person to find and vet a company. Not my expertise. I’ve proposed the notion and added my stone to the soup. Anybody have anything else to add?