New York Announces Plan to Transform Puerto Rico's Electric Power Grid
New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló announced a plan to rebuild and transform Puerto Rico’s electric power system, which was severely damaged by Hurricane Maria in September. The envisioned system will be more resilient, efficient, advanced, and less dependent on fossil fuel imports that cost Puerto Ricans more than $2 billion annually.
“In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy in New York, a plan was immediately put into place to harden and enhance the power grid to ensure storms would not damage our communities in the future – and now is the time to implement a similar plan to ensure these upgrades are also completed in Puerto Rico,” Governor Cuomo said. “We need to act now to transform the island’s power grid and provide the people of Puerto Rico with a modern and reliable electric system.”
The plan, created by the Puerto Rico Energy Resiliency Working Group established by Governor Cuomo to aid the island in its damage assessment and power grid rebuild planning, calls for the island’s new electric power system to be designed with the resiliency to withstand future storms and to be built with modern grid technologies and control systems. The new system will have increased renewable generation, such as wind and solar; incorporate new distributed energy resource technologies, such as energy storage and microgrids; reduce dependency on fossil fuels; and enable energy to become abundant, affordable and sustainable for the people of Puerto Rico.
The group’s recommendations are based on experience implementing power system recovery, rebuilding and hardening in the aftermath of hurricanes encountered on the U.S. mainland over the last decade. They include the use of modern technology and incorporate lessons learned from the successful rebuild efforts in other regions after natural disasters, such as Superstorm Sandy in New York. Additionally, the plan’s recommendations align with the U.S. Department of Energy’s recommendations for power system hardening and resiliency.
Consistent with the observed wind speeds from Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s new system needs to withstand a Category 4 storm, which produces wind speeds of 155 miles/hour and heavy floods. The plan also calls to modernize the Puerto Rico electric grid, leveraging proven power system technologies to better contain outages, reduce recovery times, lower operations costs and enable more sustainable energy resources.
The development of this plan was undertaken in parallel with New York State’s post-hurricane assessment and restoration support to Puerto Rico that began in September. Currently, more than 450 New York State utilities workers are on the ground in Puerto Rico, working diligently to repair the island’s power grid.
The Puerto Rico Energy Resiliency Working Group is comprised of power utilities and leading entities in the energy sector, including:
- New York Power Authority (NYPA)
- Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA)
- Puerto Rico Energy Commission
- Consolidated Edison (Con Edison)
- U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
- Edison International
- Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)
- Long Island Power Authority (LIPA)
- Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA)
- Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL)
- National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
- Grid Modernization Lab Consortium (GMLC)
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)
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