Irma threatens Puerto Rico's fragile grid

Puerto Rico was bracing for landfall of Hurricane Irma on Wednesday, which threatens to claim many lives and cause serious damage in the island, especially to its fragile electricity grid.

To make matters worse, Puerto Rico is already facing financial difficulties, having defaulted on its US$70bn debt in 2016.

"There are going to be blackouts. Areas that will spend three, four months without electricity," Ricardo Ramos, executive director of state power utility AEE, was quoted as saying Wednesday by Spanish news agency EFE.

US media has speculated that parts of the island could be left without power for six months as a result of hurricane damage.

Ramos had warned in July that the ceasing of operations at AES Puerto Rico's co-generation plant would cause grid instability, raise electricity prices for customers, and increase the risk of outages and interruptions.

The move would also disrupt the maintenance program for the rest of the public utility's power generation plants, as it would require an excessive amount of low-efficiency units that operate using diesel, which is a more expensive fuel, Ramos said at the time.

In August, Ramos announced plans to add 240MW of solar capacity by June 2019 to help plug the generation shortfall.

In May, the island's government released a list of priority projects for this year, among them energy sector initiatives that would be carried out through public-private partnerships (PPP), envisioning natural gas use at AEE's residual fuel oil fired-plants Costa Sur (990MW) and Palo Seco (602MW), which would cost US$150mn-265mn and US$200mn-360mn, respectively.

Also read: Extreme weather underscores need for backup generation

Irma's path across the Leeward Islands of the Caribbean caused extensive damage on St Barts, St Martin and Anguilla on Wednesday, with full details of casualties and details still to emerge. While Irma, a category 5 storm, is not expected to pass directly over Puerto Rico, the island will not escape the strong winds and heavy rains.