Spanish
The prominent urban music interpreter Bad Bunny used his fame and the Super Bowl halftime stage to once again highlight the electrical crisis that plagues Puerto Rico before the world, by performing one of his songs on top of a power pole with several transformers that simulated having had a failure.
For several decades, Puerto Rico has been suffering an electrical crisis, fundamentally due to the bankruptcy of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), and the privatization of the sector through the company LUMA Energy for distribution and Genera PR for generation, which have not been able to provide a solution; on the contrary, it has worsened.
That situation was complicated by the passage of Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico's electrical grid in 2017, causing a total blackout (100% of customers) and the longest power outage in United States history.
The lack of investment has led to the deterioration of the obsolete electrical infrastructure, where it is estimated that more than 60% of transformers are over 30 years old and fragile in the face of natural disasters.
These variables translate into an unstable system and power outages that have come to affect up to 80% of the population at the same time.
One of the peaks of the crisis was experienced on December 31, 2024, where more than 90% of Puerto Rico welcomed the new year without electricity, due to the collapse of the system for more than 24 hours.
The company LUMA Energy itself reported that 1,309,713 customers were left without power, out of a total of 1,468,223.
Hostos Project
In the midst of this crisis, the Hostos Project emerges, through which it seeks to interconnect the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico energetically with a submarine cable, which will transmit 700 MW of reliable base energy, generated by natural gas plants that will be built especially for the project. It is estimated that Puerto Rico will need more than 5,500 MW of fixed capacity by 2030. Currently (Monday, February 9th) Puerto Rico has a total generation of 2034 MW, with an available capacity of 3095 MW and a rotating reserve of 572 MW.
