Rep. Nydia Velázquez, DN.Y., is asking the U.S. Department of Energy to help Puerto Rico monitor economic losses from the recurring power outages that have plagued the U.S. territory since the beginning of the month, leaving hundreds of thousands of customers without electricity such as the island faces heat warnings.
Small Business Owners People on the island are concerned about staying open as they incur additional costs to run generators or repair damaged electronics needed to run their businesses.
In San Juan, the capital, businesspeople reported having been without electricity for nine consecutive days at the beginning of June. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans across the island have suffered prolonged power outages and voltage fluctuations – damaging household appliances and forcing residents to discard spoiled food and medicine.
The economic losses that businesses and consumers are enduring during these disruptions have been difficult to measure.
In response, Velázquez, the first Puerto Rican woman elected to Congress, sent a letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Friday requesting that Puerto Rico be added to the department Outage Cost Estimation Calculator System.
In the letter, first obtained by NBC News, Velázquez said the measure will help Puerto Rican authorities measure the duration and frequency of outages and their economic impact, and will help evaluate issues of compensation for people’s losses.
“There must be greater transparency about the extent of damage caused by service interruptions,” Velázquez wrote.
The outages have reignited calls from frustrated Puerto Ricans to oust private American companies that recently took over power production and distribution after Hurricane Maria devastated the island’s already fragile and disinvested power grid in 2017.
At a press conference on Thursday, officials from Luma Energy, the company responsible for Puerto Rico’s energy transmission and distribution system, said High vegetation caused failures in two transmission lines on Wednesday night, leaving more than 340,000 customers without electricity.
Luma officials also warned of future power service interruptions for the same reason, citing delays in a federally funded project to clear vegetation around power lines, which was supposed to begin in late 2023.
At a legislative hearing in 2022, following Hurricane Fiona, Puerto Rican lawmakers identified deficiencies in the way Luma Energy keeps power lines clear of excessive vegetation and its ability to quickly restore power lines.
Government officials in Puerto Rico have promised for years that the privatization of the electrical grid under Luma Energy, and more recently Genera PR, would improve electrical services. But with permanent reconstruction of the devastated power grid pending since 2017, outages have occurred more frequently and lasted longer in recent years.
The Puerto Rico Energy Bureau, the independent government agency responsible for regulating energy utilities, ordered Luma Energy and Genera PR to create a “priority plan for stabilizing the electricity grid.“Companies have 20 days to submit a preliminary plan to the agency, according to the resolution.
The resolution also calls for an investigation into the failure of a power transformer that left tens of thousands of other Puerto Ricans without power on June 2.
The power outage lasted so long that cities in the central and southern regions of Puerto Rico were forced to activate emergency response teams and request food distribution to those in need.
Repairs to the faulty power transformer could take more than a month, particularly because the replacement parts are so heavy they cannot be transported by road, presenting Luma Energy with a logistical challenge as it evaluates alternatives such as shipping.
“While private operators are unable to deliver results, the physical, emotional and economic cost to consumers increases,” Velázquez told NBC News in a statement about the letter. “Immediate compensation for these losses is essential and private operators must be held accountable for their failures.”
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