LUMA’s perspective: A look back
CEO Juan Saca reflects on LUMA Energy’s efforts to improve Puerto Rico’s electrical grid while addressing criticisms and future challenges.
For over three years, the LUMA team has worked tirelessly to build a more resilient, reliable and customer-focused electrical system for Puerto Rico. Despite the historical challenges that preceded LUMA, the team continues to move forward firmly with work that enables progress and stability in electrical service.
For a long time, LUMA has been the target of strong attacks aimed at questioning the commitment and tireless efforts of its workers. There have even been attempts to erase historical facts that occurred before LUMA’s arrival and to deny the progress made in three years, which, based on erroneous premises, puts at risk the more than 4,500 employees and leaders who are committed to Puerto Rico’s future.
We cannot ignore the operational and financial damage caused by decades of utility mismanagement. For example, past operational and fiscal failures resulted in one of the largest utility bankruptcies in the history of the municipal bond markets, estimated at more than $10 billion, with the lack of maintenance to its infrastructure still affecting LUMA’s progress.
We must not forget that the previous operator had the lowest performance rating among utilities of similar size across the United States, according to J.D. Power, an internationally recognized company and the most prestigious independent source for customer satisfaction rankings.
To address these deficiencies, LUMA implemented new measures that reduced wait times at call and service centers to just minutes, when they used to exceed an hour.
Similarly, LUMA has initiated more than 426 FEMA projects since 2021, of which 144 are already under construction or have been completed. Additionally, to improve service reliability, it has installed more than 17,000 new poles capable of withstanding winds over 160 mph and cleared more than 4,900 miles of vegetation to reduce the main cause of outages on the island. Also, it has installed more than 8,400 automated devices that have prevented more than 130 million minutes of outages for its customers.
Moreover, it has connected more than 100,000 new customers to the net metering program, the largest number of customers entering the program in Puerto Rico’s history. Also, it launched the Smart Meter Initiative, which will help detect and respond to outages more quickly and efficiently while allowing customers to control their energy usage and costs.
Let’s consider this fact: In the past year, more than 95% of customers had uninterrupted service for more than 98% of the time when generation was available. Likewise, the LUMA team is prioritizing safety and improving emergency response, as it recently demonstrated by restoring electrical service to more than 90% of all customers affected by Tropical Storm Ernesto in just 54 hours.
The repeated attacks on LUMA undermine the trust of the people of Puerto Rico and are a humiliation to the thousands of employees who work daily, focused on progress and the rebuilding of the energy system.
While there is no doubt that much work remains to be done and real challenges will persist, it is essential that these attacks stop and that everyone works together in an organized and constructive way to achieve real and lasting change for the benefit of future generations.
There will be no distractions or influences that will stop LUMA’s work, progress and commitment to building a better Puerto Rico and continuing to serve its more than 1.5 million customers on the island.
This is our commitment.
Author Juan Saca is president and CEO of LUMA.
