![]() "LUMA probably underestimated the scope of what they were undertaking," he said. He cited the ongoing power outages that preceded Fiona and the slow repairs that followed them. The poorly maintained energy grid poses LUNA with a difficult task, but even so the company has performed "below expectations," Marxuach said. ![]() In June 2021, a Canadian-American business partnership called LUMA Energy took over management of the electric grid. ![]() Meanwhile, the island also privatized its electric system. In addition, officials from the government of Puerto Rico said the island has struggled to obtain the materials needed to commence projects, causing delays of as long as 24 months, the report said. Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan oversight agency, cited as a key impediment the conflict between FEMA and Puerto Rican government entities over the scope of projects. "This is a huge, gigantic megaproject and the scope of work for each component has been argued over with FEMA," he told ABC News.Ī report released last week by the U.S. The delay owes primarily to disagreement between FEMA and the government of Puerto Rico over the implementation of the funds, said Sergio Marxuach, policy director at the Center for a New Economy, a Puerto Rico-based nonpartisan think tank. In other words, as of June, the amount spent by FEMA on projects to permanently restore the power grid makes up 0.05% of the overall funds made available by the federal government. Laboy Rivera, the executive director of Puerto Rico's Central Office for Recovery, Reconstruction and Resiliency said in a press release in June. The sum made up more than half of the support that PREPA would need to modernize its electric grid over the ensuing 10 years, bond credit rating service Moody's said at the time of the announcement.īillions in additional funds from FEMA brought the total support allocated for rebuilding the power grid to roughly $12.8 billion, FEMA said in June.īut FEMA has only spent a fraction of the overall money, and an especially small amount of the funds dedicated to "permanent works," or projects that aim to replace or restore a damaged facility for long-term use.įEMA has spent $1.6 billion in emergency categories and $7.1 million for permanent works, Manuel A. Three years after Hurricane Maria, in September 2020, the Trump administration announced nearly $9.6 billion in federal funding for the repair of the island's power system. The years following Hurricane Maria brought a mix of public and private efforts to improve the country's electrical infrastructure. ![]() What was done to fix the electric grid after Hurricane Maria? PREPA had issued bonds to finance the energy grid, but could not pay them back. Months before Maria, PREPA had declared bankruptcy, citing a $9 billion debt load. The hurricane's impact prompted sharp scrutiny of the public utility in charge of the power grid - the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA). "The system is old and it's undermaintained," Sanzillo said. ![]() As the economy in Puerto Rico weakened in the 2000s, the maintenance budget shrank and what has been deemed mismanagement exacerbated the shortfall, he added. The electricity infrastructure had shown signs of fragility even before Maria, said Sanzillo. It took 328 days, or roughly 11 months, for the island to restore power to all of the customers who lost it during the hurricane, which marked the longest blackout in U.S. When Hurricane Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico, in September 2017, the storm devastated the island's electricity grid. Here's what you need to know about Puerto Rico's power grid and why it remains fragile: Didn't a power outage happen five years ago with Hurricane Maria? "It's beyond belief how bad the system is." "Outages have been occurring for one reason or another," Tom Sanzillo, the director of financial analysis for think tank the Institute of Energy and Economics and Financial Analysis, told ABC News. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |