Private power companies in Puerto Rico are under scrutiny as officials demand fewer outages

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Two private power companies came under scrutiny Wednesday while they presented plans to stabilize Puerto Rico’s crumbling electric grid as officials demanded immediate action to minimize chronic power outages.

The presentations by Genera PR, which operates the generation of power in the U.S. territory, and Luma Energy, which handles transmission and distribution, lasted more than five hours as they answered questions by Puerto Rico’s Energy Bureau and others.

The bureau had ordered both companies in June to produce “aggressive” plans to improve the island’s electric system, which was razed by Hurricane Maria in 2017 but was already failing prior to the Category 4 storm given a lack of maintenance and investment under Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority.

“We continue to see a high rate of critical failures,” said Daniel Haughton, Luma’s planning director. The ongoing outages come as crews make permanent repairs to the grid following Hurricane Maria, which caused an estimated $9.7 billion in damage to the system’s transmission and distribution.