Grid development for energy justice and a just transition

The decline in the resilience of the US power grid and its territories is a matter of life and death and undermines well-being. Energy access, affordability, and reliability are central to environmental justice and key social determinants of health and mobility; yet, inequalities in grid reliability remain under-addressed. Drawing on the observations and research on the Hurricane María outages, this perspective discusses the unequal consequences of grid unreliability and argues that environmental justice and just transition principles offer fruitful ways forward. Grid-resilience efforts grounded in these approaches can reduce loss of life, economic losses, and disruptions to healthcare systems and medical supply chains. I call for targeted investments in grid development for energy-oppressed communities, closing data gaps on medical and social vulnerability, and measures to curtail energy clientelism and corruption. Grid resilience is not solely a technical and economic problem but a social one requiring an environmental justice approach.