Puerto Rico is on the brink of a power supply crisis. Protesters demand answers.
Oct. 1, 2021, 3:18 PM CDT / Updated Oct. 1, 2021, 5:29 PM CDT
By Nicole Acevedo
Puerto Rico residents will see another increase in their electricity bill, even though they already pay twice as much as mainland U.S. customers for unreliable service.The increase comes the same week in which hundreds of thousands of Puerto Rican power customers were subjected to blackouts several days in a row.
The entities in charge of the island’s power supply, Luma Energy and the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, have blamed the outages on their inability to generate enough electricity to meet consumer demand, the electrical grid’s lack of proper maintenance and other unforeseen circumstances, including a “sargassum event“ where seaweed clogged the water filters for condensers.
Against this backdrop, over 30 community groups that are part of the Puerto Rican coalition Todos Somos Pueblo gathered in Old San Juan Friday evening to call attention to the ongoing energy crisis, and urge the government to cancel its contract with Luma, a private company working with the power authority, a public corporation.
“It’s not normal to have blackouts, it’s not normal that our students cannot study properly, it’s not normal to have to live with generators, it’s not normal to have to throw away groceries because the refrigerator can’t work without power," Ricardo Santos, a spokesperson for Todos Somos Pueblo at the protest, told Telemundo Puerto Rico in Spanish. "None of this is normal and it’s not normal that our electric bill goes up all the time. That's why we have to go to the streets."
More:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/puerto-rico-brink-power-supply-crisis-protesters-demand-answers-rcna2508