DOE orders PREPA to act on failing energy system

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md., Feb. 20, 2025. (Eric Lee/The New York Times)

By The Star Staff

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has exercised its emergency authority to mandate the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) to strengthen the island’s failing power system.

The action comes after Puerto Rico experienced two significant blackouts within a month.

The first emergency order directs PREPA to dispatch generation units necessary to expand baseload generation for the island and maintain grid reliability, closing the gap in generation shortfall. The second order directs PREPA to perform vegetation management activities -- which mitigate risk of shortages and fire -- to help ensure the operational availability of the specified transmission facilities.

The orders issued last Friday by Energy Secretary Chris Wright, representing the DOE’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response, were prompted by observations that Puerto Rico’s electrical grid has remained vulnerable due to decades of neglect in maintenance, damage from natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes, and inadequate investment in infrastructure.

In addition to the emergency directives, the DOE’s Grid Deployment Office will assess the utilization of $365 million in funding from the Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund to ensure that all DOE assistance effectively addresses the practical challenges facing the grid and serves the needs of Puerto Rico’s residents.

“Access to energy is essential for modern life, yet the current energy emergency threatens Puerto Ricans’ access to basic necessities,” Wright said. “This system is unsustainable, and our fellow citizens should not have to suffer the constant instability and dangerous consequences of an unreliable power grid.”

He also noted that under President Donald Trump’s leadership, prioritizing immediate and comprehensive actions to mitigate the greatest threats to the grid is essential to benefit a broader segment of the population, including critical facilities like hospitals and community centers.

Puerto Rico faced a complete islandwide blackout on April 16, impacting all 1.4 million electricity customers and disrupting vital services. The DOE identified insufficient clearance between vegetation and a major transmission line operated by LUMA Energy and owned by PREPA as the root cause of that blackout. A preliminary investigation suggested that the issue led to a cascading failure throughout the system, resulting in a total power loss. Subsequently, last Thursday, a partial blackout affected 134,000 customers. The DOE stated that those incidents, along with ongoing problems in voltage and frequency regulation, necessitate immediate interventions in both generation and transmission systems.