Uncertainty of power production following FEMA’s refusal to provide additional portable generators

After the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) refused to Increasing the temporary generation capacity from 350 to 700 megawatts. Provided to alleviate the shortcomings of the country’s permanent fleet, spokesman Generate PREvan Baez indicated that the company will continue the maintenance program for existing factories.

However, Baez emphasized that an additional 350 megawatts is necessary to stabilize generation capacity in the short term, a goal shared by Gov. Pedro Pierluizzi, power system operators and private sector organizations.

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“The request of the Puerto Rican government (last October after Hurricane Fiona) was 700 megawatts. We are not asking for an additional 350 megawatts, we only got half of what was requested based on current need. We are not asking for anything new,” Baez reiterated.

In this sense, Bayes considered it necessary for the various interested parties to come together so that the federal government re-evaluates its resolve and availability of the large portable generators.

In June, the Electric Energy Authority (AEE)—which is responsible for power generation—began commissioning three huge generators, with a capacity of 50 megawatts each, that were installed at the Palo Seco plant. Four more machines of similar capacity will be located at the San Juan power plant and are expected to start operating in August.

today, El Nuevo Día revealed that since Genera PR began operations on July 1, the available generation has been reduced Compared to the previous 10 days PREPA ran the fleet, contributing to LUMA – the transmission and distribution operator – which implemented a series of selective outages over the past week. Specifically, available capacity between July 1 and 10 averaged 3,199 megawatts per day, which is down from the 335 megawatts recorded between June 21 and 30. The average reserve – which would ideally be around 700 megawatts – has fallen from 421 megawatts at the end of June to 376 in the early days of July.

In that period, many of the main units at base plants in Palo Seco, Aguirre, Costa Sur, and San Juan were out of service or operating at limited capacity, failures that Baez attributed to the deterioration and age of the plants.

Governor Pierluisi put it in writing: “We will talk.” “Genera PR and LUMA are conducting additional updated analysis and modeling that will soon be sent to FEMA and the Corps of Engineers for evaluation as part of my original request. My request to the federal authorities is that they carefully study this updated data.”

“We will continue with our preventive improvement plan and our equipment replacement plan. But with that said, we are holding the order there and there will be talks with the DOE. There will be meetings soon and we will continue with the original claim order,” Baez confirmed.

Unqualified investment

FEMA, in written statements, justified its decision on the basis that funds approved to operate the temporary generation must respond to damage caused by Hurricane Fiona. For running portable generators, the agency covers 90% of the cost of natural gas supplied by New Fortress Energy, Genera’s parent company.

“although Recent heat record in Puerto Rico Led to a request from the governor to provide an additional 350 megawatts, the extreme heat is not a direct result of Fiona, making it impossible for FEMA to supply it, FEMA summed up in a statement initially published in El Vocero.

“Progress on certain emergency repairs in Aguirre that the Puerto Rican government has implemented has concluded that the original estimate of temporary capacity, which was about 700 megawatts, has been reduced to 350 megawatts. Therefore, FEMA has 150 megawatts of temporary capacity operating in Palo Seco and expects that 200 The remaining megawatts of temporary capacity will be available in San Juan in the next 30 to 60 days.

At the time of publication, LUMA Energy, as the electrical system operator responsible for designing the generation stability plan, had not reacted.

Bayes, who estimated that the generation component will remain unstable at least until next year, did not specify how much the projection would change if the federal government did not agree to provide additional generation.

“We will continue with our plan. We cannot think that since this assistance is not available, we will postpone it. We must continue, the system is very degraded and we have to put our hand in this matter.”