Puerto Rico governor denounces power company amid outages
Published:Thursday | August 18, 2022 | 3:57 PM
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico's governor on Thursday denounced the private company his administration contracted to take over the island's power transmission and distribution system amid a recent spike in electricity outages that have outraged many in the United States territory.
It is the first time Governor Pedro Pierluisi has publicly criticised Luma Energy — a consortium made up of Calgary, Alberta-based Atco and Quanta Services Inc. of Houston — despite street protests and calls on social media for Pierluisi to cancel Luma's 15-year contract that began in June 2021.
“I am not satisfied with the performance of Luma,” said Pierluisi, who previously had defended and praised the company.
“It is obvious to me that you have to make changes to your execution plan to significantly improve the service you are offering our people.”
Hours later, Luma officials held a press conference where they said progress has been made and said the neglect and mismanagement that occurred under Puerto Rico's Electric Power Authority, which is trying to restructure more than $9 billion in debt, are not going to be fixed in a year.
“We recognise and acknowledge that there are significant challenges that remain to be addressed,” said CEO Wayne Stensby. “I know that the people of Puerto Rico are tired of excuses and the constant blaming of someone else.”
Luma's roughly 1.5 million clients have been hit by power outages that have worsened in recent months and have forced some businesses to close since they cannot afford to run generators on expensive fuel.
One of Puerto Rico's largest hospitals was left without power last week when one of its generators failed in the middle of an outage.
Luma and Puerto Rico's Electric Power Authority have blamed ageing infrastructure, lack of maintenance, bad weather, sargassum and even an iguana for the blackouts. Officials also stress they're working with a system just now being rebuilt after Hurricane Maria razed the U.S. territory's power grid in September 2017.
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