Puerto Rico’s new governor, Wanda Vázquez, has been trying to distance herself from the previous Rosselló administration. For example, she recently suspended a $450,000 grid reconstruction contract that was subsequently cancelled by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA). But hundreds of millions of dollars in natural gas infrastructure contracts continue to move forward unchallenged. […]
The Puerto Rican legislature will soon consider a debt restructuring deal for Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority (PREPA) that is unaffordable and risks jeopardizing the island’s economic recovery, according to a report released today by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). The report, “Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority debt restructuring: A weak […]
Author Cathy Kunkel ([email protected]) is an IEEFA energy analyst. Author Tom Sanzillo ([email protected]) is IEEFA’s Director of Finance. On Friday, July 12, José Carrión, chairman of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico, noted that the recent corruption and other scandals over the past couple of weeks would negatively impact the island’s economic […]
Some 14,800 Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority customers are benefiting from Net Metering Billing, representing about 70 million-kilowatt hour of energy consumption through renewable energy sources including solar, wind and geothermal. Under net metering, renewable energy system supplies all or part of the client’s electricity consumption; excess energy, if any, is exported to PREPA’s electrical […]
The Special Claims Committee of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico today filed a complaint against several fuel suppliers and laboratories seeking to recover potentially billions of dollars in fraudulent payments made by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority. The Oversight Board’s complaint alleges that between 2002 and 2015 certain fuel suppliers […]
The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority attempted to go back on the agreement it had reached with nonprofit organization CAMBIO and the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) to deliver public documents related to utility’s, as well as electrical system data, by June 7, the nonprofits said. Six days after making this commitment, […]
Supporters of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s proposed debt restructuring agreement — including Gov. Ricardo Rosselló and PREPA Executive Director José Ortiz — have recently argued that the rate increase imposed by the agreement will be mitigated by operational savings that will lower electricity rates. The governor’s and PREPA’s public statements about rate decreases […]
The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) and Puerto Rican nonprofit CAMBIO obtained a court agreement pledging the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) to respond to and deliver within 14 days public documents regarding the PREPA privatization process, as well as data about the electrical system. The agreement between the parties was […]
The proposed Restructuring Support Agreement for the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority is not a good transaction for Puerto Rico. Its terms and conditions are overly generous to creditors; it discourages the transition to distributed renewable generation; it is uncertain whether it provides the debt relief necessary to maintain PREPA as a going concern, while […]
The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis and CAMBIO, a Puerto Rico-based environmental nonprofit organization, filed a mandamus action in San Juan Superior Court to obtain information about the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s system and ongoing privatization process. “Very little information has been provided about the underlying studies or plans related to the […]
A “business as usual” bond deal is about to be foisted upon Puerto Rico’s ratepayers and fledgling economy. It will result in a $400 million annual cash draw for at least the next 20 years. Think about wasting money on overpriced oil, political appointees and useless consultants over the last twenty years and then paying for […]
Creating a competitive free market for electricity in Puerto Rico was a recurring theme of the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee hearing held April 9th on the rebuilding and privatization of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA). But the discussion of what a competitive electricity market would look like remained vague, along with details […]
Last month, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority filed its long-anticipated integrated resource plan – a 20-year plan for the transformation of the island’s power generation system – with its regulator, the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau. In the plan, PREPA details various scenarios for the build-out of generation infrastructure and a five-year action plan of […]
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