Puerto Rico struggles without power

• 6 years ago (2017-09-29)
• David Flin

Latin America 75 Transmission 181

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Millions of Puerto Rico residents are without power, drinkable water is scarce, roads have been washed away, and a dam is in danger of collapse following the devastation of Hurricanes Irma and Maria.

Ricardo Rossello, Governor of Puerto Rico, has ordered the evacuation of all 70,000 residents in the area under the Guajataca Dam, at the northern end of Lake Guajatac. He said: “We were able to observe directly the damage to the Guajataca dam. We reaffirm the request to evacuate the area as soon as possible.”

The island’s grid was completely devastated, and it will be four to six months before power is fully restored to the island. Chris Burgess, Director of Projects for the Islands Energy Programme at the Rocky Mountain Institute, said that the islands are seeking to shift away from centralised power grids towards microgrids. He said: “If you look at the islands affected by the recent hurricanes, the utilities say they would prefer to rebuild using distributed generation with storage, and trying to reduce the amount of transmission lines.”