WASHINGTON, D.C. – Puerto Rico’s Governor Jenniffer Gonzalez is looking to change up the island’s energy provider after an island-wide blackout impacted more than one point four million people. Most of the power has since been restored but frustrations about the island’s power problems have reached an all-time high.
For nearly two days, nearly half of the island’s population were without power and 400-thousand without water after a massive blackout hit Puerto Rico a few days ago.
In a preliminary report from LUMA Energy, the company responsible for overseeing transmission and power on the island, they found that a transmission line apparently failed because of overgrown vegetation.
LUMA sent us a press release:
“Initial and preliminary assessments indicate that the outage was triggered by a fault on a transmission line between Cambalache and Manatí. While multiple equipment were in place to detect and isolate the fault, several key protection systems did not operate as designed. These legacy protection systems were installed prior to LUMA taking over operation of the T&D system. As a result, the fault, coupled with the failure of these protection systems, triggered a cascading event across the system, leading to widespread service interruptions. The inability of the protective infrastructure to function under stress – due to long-standing system deterioration which pre-dates LUMA – mirrors the root cause of a similar system-wide event that occurred in December. Both events highlight the deep, underlying fragility of Puerto Rico’s electric grid, which remains vulnerable due to aging infrastructure and a lack of historic investment. LUMA is committed to conducting a full investigation into the root cause of this event which will be submitted once it’s complete.”
But frustration about the island’s power problems have reached new heights.
“The Governor has been very clear since the beginning the LUMA contract is ending,” said Gabriella Boffelli, the executive director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration. They’re the DC arm of the Puerto Rico Governor’s office. The Governor recently established two subcommittees on energy.
“We need to be looking at: number one, finding operators who can take over LUMA. One thing that she’s been very clear is that I can’t take get rid of LUMA without having a replacement. That’s the goal of that subcommittee and the other one is to: document all of the different failures that LUMA has not done over the past couple of months or even several years now ever since they signed the first contract,” said Boffelli.
The Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright sent us this statement:
“The U.S. Department of Energy is monitoring the situation in Puerto Rico as the island continues to make progress on restoring power to its residents. We are in communication with Governor González-Colón and are standing by to provide assistance as necessary. Unleashing affordable, reliable and secure energy for all Americans is a top priority for this administration. We are actively working with Gov. González-Colón to strengthen Puerto Rico’s grid and restore stability for the Puerto Rican people.”
As for any replacements for LUMA, we’re told it’s too early to speak on that.
“I know there’s a lot of interest,” said Boffelli. “There’s some serious conversations that have to go on into absorbing something like this.”