Devastating RepoRt on pRepa

PREPA’s Aguirre powerplant >Nahira Montcourt

New PREPA Director Gives Devastating Report on the State of Power plants

More than five generating units do not work, two of these for seven years

Maricarmen Rivera mrivera@elvocero.com

The Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), Josué Colón, presented Gov. Pedro Pierluisi with a report that describes in black and white the fragile situation of the energy system, which has been operating with several units out of service for years and others that require milliondollar repairs. The report details that there are more than five generating units that are not working. Two of these have not been operational for at least seven years.

There are reportedly eight units at Central San

Juan with significant breakdowns and half require what Colón classified as “major repairs.”

In San Juan, Unit 10 experienced a low pressure turbine failure and has not been in operation since 2015. Repairing this unit would cost $15 million and would take six months. In total, the estimated repairs for the San Juan units are around $100 million. At Palo Seco in Toa Baja, there are three units out of service. Unit 1 has been out of service since 2014, while Unit 2 is not working because the generator is broken. Unit 4 was “forced” out of service, according to the report, due to an oil leak in the wiring.

At Aguirre in Salinas, there are two units with significant problems. Unit 1 is scheduled for repairs in 2022. Replacing the turbine rotors will cost $18 million. Another unit has a problem with a water control valve.

At Costa Sur in Guayanilla, Units 5 and 6 are damaged and the expectation is that at least one - Unit 5 - will resume operations today (Wednesday). The estimated cost of these repairs is $20 million.

In response, the governor reiterated his support for the new PREPA director and stated that the report “confirms that the problem is largely a lack of maintenance.” “I have asked the director to review the maintenance plan and determine if the allocated amount is adequate and I have told him that the lack of funds is not going to be a justification for not doing the required maintenance,” Pierluisi said. “We are going to look for resources where we have to look for them to maintain the plants. There are federal regulations that regulate the use of plants for emissions. Sometimes the plants cannot operate precisely because the regulations prevent it or because the generation would cause fines, but they are very technical aspects,” he added.

Regarding the acquisition of three turbines for Palo Seco under consideration by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, he pointed out that he leaves the matter “in the hands of the executive director with his consultants because they are technical aspects that must be addressed in the authority.”

They Were Warned

Ángel Figueroa Jaramillo, president of the Union of Industry Workers Electrical and Irrigation (Utier by its Spanish acronym), stated that for years, the failures detailed by Colón have been denounced by PREPA union members.

The situation, he pointed out, was aggravated by the dismissal of workers who know the most about the operation of the plants and the subcontracting of private companies.

He indicated that Aguirre’s Unit 2 that reported a boiler leak had been repaired by a private company that had a turnover of about $18 million. It is estimated that it must be taken out of operations for five days to repair it again. “The governor has said something fundamental. The Authority’s problem is not one of the public model. It is a management problem. And, within that management problem, there is the lack of knowledge that we have had because we have lost those colleagues who know how the authority operates,” he expressed.

The union leader applauded the intention to bring back more than 100 employees who were removed from their positions with the arrival of the private company LUMA Energy. “The director presented the reality, this is not that he discovered America. These are indications that we have made for years and we have reaffirmed that there has been abandonment and a lack of maintenance,” Figueroa added. “This call to bring comrades who were displaced seems important to me. What this shows is that they should not have been displaced and that the crisis responds to the displacement of that technical knowledge, “he said.