Puerto Rico’s Power Woes Are Decades in the Making - WSJ

Puerto Rico’s Power Woes Are Decades in the Making - WSJ

Years of underinvestment and massive debts left the energy grid vulnerable

TOA BAJA, Puerto Rico—As residents grapple with power outages across the entire island, the task of turning the lights back on falls to an electrical utility saddled with rickety infrastructure, workforce reductions and financial troubles so deep it declared a form of bankruptcy in July.
Earlier this month, Hurricane Irma sideswiped the island, knocking out power to about 70% of the customers of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, or Prepa.
...“This is a major disaster, we have lost 100% of our energy, there has been a lot of flooding,” Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said Sunday.
“People don’t think there will be light until after Christmas,”
...Power outages are common.
A fire at one of the utility’s plants in September triggered a blackout across the island that left many customers without power for days.
Yet prices are high.
In April, Prepa’s average electricity rate was 20.1 cents per kilowatt-hour, down from 25 cents in 2013 but still close to double the average mainland U.S. rate of about 12 cents, according to Moody’s..."