Puerto Rico extends power contract amid outages, objections

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A heavily criticized private company that operates the transmission and distribution of power in Puerto Rico secured a last-minute extension on its contract Wednesday despite widespread objections.

Luma Energy obtained the extension following a 4-1 vote by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s board, with the sole dissenting vote cast by a member representing the public’s interest.

The approval of the temporary contract comes amid worsening power outages that prompted the U.S. government to intervene this month and start securing barges and land-based generators to ease blackouts. Crews have started to rebuild the power grid that Hurricane Maria razed in September 2017, with only emergency repairs made until now.

Luma, a consortium made up of Calgary, Alberta-based Atco and Quanta Services Inc. of Houston, was initially awarded the contract in June 2021, taking over crumbling infrastructure resulting from decades of neglect and mismanagement under Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority.

But the duration of outages has worsened under Luma, and the company has faced heavy scrutiny and calls for its contract to be cancelled by customers who have been hit with seven electric rate increases in one year while often left in the dark. Several substations have caught fire in recent months, with Luma on occasion blaming bad weather, sargassum — a type of seaweed — and even an iguana, as well as aging infrastructure further weakened by Hurricane Fiona, a Category 1 storm that struck Puerto Rico’s southwest region in September and caused an estimated $4 billion in damage to the power grid.

In August, Gov. Pedro Pierluisi criticized Luma publicly for the first time, saying he was not satisfied with its performance. But he has since said Luma is...