Luma is understaffed – Metro Puerto Rico

Company LUMA Energy No number of budgeted employeesEstablished by First determination in measurements A private operator of transmission and distribution system issued by Puerto Rico Energy Bureau (PRNE).

In June 2021, when LUMA officially started operating on the island, it had more staff than budgeted, but by last May, the company’s situation was reversed. Meanwhile, The company had a budget of about 1,400 workers, while its workforce was over 1,200..

It is noteworthy that LUMA requested that PREB be allowed to report total number of employees and total vacancies instead of total budgeted number of employees by employee type and total actual number of employees by employee type.

“The Energy Bureau determines that these are measurements of interest at this time. Therefore, andl The Energy Bureau denies the LUMA request”, reads the document.

The PREB resolution specifies Average employee earningsThe number of employees laid off is defined as the number of employees divided by the total number of employees at the end of the period. United States Bureau of Labor Statistics Separation rates for average applications as of May 2022.

Some vehicles

From the ortho side, it is indicated The average number of vehicles currently in service is less than half Amount reported for fiscal year 2020.

“During the February 2021 technical conference, LUMA indicated that many vehicles were in poor condition. The Energy Bureau is interested in understanding the number of vehicles available Ensure that both PREPA and LUMA are adequately resourced to meet operational requirements,” the resolution said.

The resolution was issued a year after the contract awarded under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model went into effect and after several investigations opened by PREB after several blackouts and/or explosions in the power system.

He concluded The Federation did not improve the contracted service.

No improvement with LUMA

The data is part of a resolution in which the Energy Bureau says energy service in Puerto Rico has not been improved under PREPA’s transmission and distribution system operating agreement.

After a peak during the operator transition in June 2021, the monthly average service interruption period (SAIDI) has been reduced till January 2022. However, since the beginning of this year till now, the interruption period has been increasing. The annual average of the SAIDI has continued to rise from June to the present, and is above the historical metric (“baseline”) of 1,243 minutes, according to data disclosed by PREB.

On the other hand, the monthly average number of interruptions per customer (SAIFI) has fluctuated since the change in June 2021, peaking in October 2021. PREB concludes that at the beginning of the transition, there was no improvement in the frequency of interruptions. On an annual basis, they say SAIFI shows a slight improvement over comparable levels at the time of transition in June 2021.

The regulatory body has given LUMA till September 1, 2022 to explain the reason for the poor performance of some of its metrics.

You can listen to this episode of the Con Los Editors podcast about whether it is possible to cancel the LUMA contract: