Caribbean, Central America power watch: Puerto Rico impasse

Puerto Rico’s power and irrigation industry workers union UTIER has filed an appeal for judicial review with the island’s appeals court to revoke a deal between power utility AEE and Luma Energy.

Read Government of Puerto Rico selects Luma Energy for the operation and transformation of the transmission and distribution system

In a statement, the group’s president Ángel Figueroa Jaramillo (pictured) claims the union was not allowed to participate in the process.

“We will carry out the battle against this contract in all forums, to protect the interests of our members and the people of Puerto Rico to prevent them from continuing to steal from us and increasing the tariff,” he said.

Photo credit: UTIER

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The US Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority (WAPA) added a 24MW unit at the Randolph Harley plant (pictured below) to help cover demand in the St Thomas-St John district.

“Unit 27 was previously rented from APR Energy as part of a trio of units the company provided to meet generation needs of the district. WAPA is now leasing only one unit and directly from its owner and manufacturer, General Electric,” the utility said in a statement.

The unit is currently burning oil, but work is underway with GE for the use of propane.

“Once the conversion is completed, the Harley plant will for the first time operate on 100% LPG,” WAPA electricity systems COO Clinton Hedrington added. The Estate Richmond plant already routinely operates on 100% propane.

WAPA executive director Lawrence Kupfer said that four new Wärtsilä propane-fired generators are on order for Harley with commissioning scheduled for 2022.

Photo credit: WAPA

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Panama’s public services regulator Asep reported it has received a “large amount” of notifications from participants of the wholesale power market that they will make partial payments to the spot market due to deficit in collections.

The partial payments are allowed under transitory measures for sector stakeholders amid the coronavirus crisis.

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The environment committee of Costa Rica’s legislative assembly approved a bill to create an integrated water resource management law which would update the current framework from 1942.