Puerto Rico government demands answers from Luma after island-wide blackout

By D NICA COTO SAN JUAN Puerto Rico AP Puerto Rico s governor on Monday urged people to moderate their strength consumption as she warned that the island has no additional generation to fall back on days after a massive blackout hit the U S territory Gov Jenniffer Gonz lez revealed officers are waiting for an explanation from Luma Capacity a private company that oversees transmission and distribution of power in Puerto Rico about what caused the island-wide outage on April It affected million customers and left more than others without water The governor publicized that two subcommittees have been created one to help the island s so-called strength czar to audit Luma s contract and another to identify probable companies to replace Luma if its contract is terminated There have been multiple incidents she disclosed when inquired whether the blackout was reason enough to cancel Luma s contract something she pledged to do while campaigning for governor The operator sold itself as an expert That perception of expertise has proven to be false Luma did not instantly respond to a request for comment The company has five days to explain why a transmission line failed and provide details about whether it complied with required flyovers of transmission lines to ensure they remain free of tree branches and other obstructions A preliminary analysis from Luma circulated late Friday unveiled that a transmission line apparently failed because of overgrown vegetation The fact that this happened indicates either that the patrol didn t take place or that the line inspector didn t detect it That tree didn t grow there overnight noted Josu Col n Puerto Rico s so-called potency czar and former executive director of the island s Electric Power Authority He declared protective equipment that was supposed to detect and isolate the failure also failed which caused the transmission system to collapse The system then enters a cascade event that is irreversible he noted The critical thing now is that this doesn t happen again Gonz lez disclosed Puerto Rico s ruling body has launched its own inquiry into the blackout to compare it to Luma s analysis and determine any discrepancies Gonz lez stressed that the administration of U S President Donald Trump has been in communication with her since the outage occurred adding that the U S Environmental Protection Agency authorized the extended use of industrial generators On Monday certain customers remained without power although bureaucrats mentioned other issues were to blame Our system is fragile Gonz lez explained Earlier on Monday she Col n and other leaders met behind closed doors to review Luma s preliminary findings recommend next moves and talk about an ongoing search for a company that can provide megawatts of additional generation in the upcoming months April marked the second massive blackout to hit Puerto Rico in less than four months The previous one happened on New Year s Eve Puerto Rico has struggled with chronic outages since September when Hurricane Maria hit the island as a powerful Category storm razing a power grid that crews are still struggling to rebuild The grid already had been deteriorating following decades of a lack of maintenance and funding under the state s Electric Power Authority which is struggling to restructure more than billion in debt Follow AP s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https apnews com hub latin-america