After Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, electric company workers denounced the lack of funding to fix aging equipment. Five years later, more than a million Puerto Ricans are without power after Hurricane Fiona landed.
According to the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau, 95% of the island’s power comes from fossil fuels, and 5% from renewable energy.
Under the Jones Act, vessels that transport U.S. goods between Puerto Rico and the United States must be built, owned and operated in the U.S. But due to the lack of liquefied natural gas tankers that comply with these requirements, Puerto Rico has to seek foreign producers, which contributes to the island paying more for these direct shipments.
"As LUMA has made repeatedly clear, it does not generate energy, has no control over generation fuel costs, does not profit from any increase in generation fuel costs, does not set rates and has never proposed a rate increase," Wayne Stensby, LUMA’s president, said in a June 15After Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, electric company workers denounced the lack of funding to fix and maintain aging equipment and what they said is the government’s mismanagement of the electric grid.
Puerto Ricans are continually experiencing blackouts because there hasn’t been enough investment and oversight — from the government and the contracted company, LUMA — to repair the electric grid, a
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