A photo of Arturo Massol-Deya with red shapes in the background.

Meet a Fellow: Arturo Massol-Deyá

Meet A Roddenberry Fellow
Arturo Massol-Deyá
May 14, 2019

Meet Arturo, a 2019 Roddenberry Fellow

Arturo Massol-Deyá is the executive director of Casa Pueblo de Adjuntas, a community-based group with 39 years of services in natural resources conservation, education, and sustainable development in Puerto Rico. His parents founded Casa Pueblo and Arturo has continued the momentum around changing Puerto Rico’s energy landscape of a country dependent on fossil fuels, to one based on renewable energy sources.

Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in the Fall of 2017 obliterating the electrical grid and subsequently affected the medical care and safety of everyone. It was a devastating reminder of the impact on relying on fossil fuels. Casa Pueblo runs on 100% solar energy since 1999 and provides critical resources to the community. Their solar infrastructure was not impacted by Hurricane Maria and served as an oasis of power for people after the hurricane.

“A vision of a 100% renewable Puerto Rico must be prioritized, and continued fossil fuel reliance must be avoided. As an archipelago, the territory of Puerto Rico is uniquely positioned for the design and implementation of distributed renewable energy systems and for both social and technological innovation in energy systems that can move ambitiously away from fossil fuels. Unfortunately, the local government, the US Congress and FEMA decided to restore the system to what it was before the hurricane and emphasized to gasify power plants, leaving the archipelago vulnerable to the next hurricane and dependent on imported fossil fuels”, says Arturo. “Their agenda is to make Puerto Rico a natural gas market, thus perpetuating dependency, colonialism and the fossil fuel industry. We are calling for the energy insurrection, a bottom-up approach to take control of our own destiny by building energy freedom.”

During the 2019 Fellowship

Throughout the Fellowship, Arturo is focused on the energy insurrection with the short term goal of #50conSOL (50% with Sun) towards energy self-sufficiency. Following Hurricane María, Casa Pueblo has completed over 150 solar projects in their communities and launched the first Community Photovoltaic Energy Generation, Storage and Distribution Network for Adjuntas’ town center. The Community Network is a replicable resilience and economic activation model, which will reinvest its earnings to finance future solar energy installations for low-income households.

Together, Casa Pueblo and Arturo are focused on community and cultural activities to unite and educate the community around solar energy. Arturo will continue to promote a path for Puerto Rico to a clean endogenous energy, resilient, inclusive and sustainable future.

“As we continue building a bottom-up transformation energy process for sustainability, we are rising public ecological awareness while social power is used to promote political accountability, better regulation and to facilitate the integration of solar technology by individuals, communities and the private sector. We are about challenging our country’s near total dependency on fossil-fueled energy and the external agenda to gasify the Island. This is an act from within to decolonize the Island by building a model of energy self-sufficiency, ours, without mortgaging the country, with the right to clean, green and sustainable energy for all.”