Infrastructure

LUMA Anticipates Smaller Energy Deficiency Today as Costa Sur Unit 5 and AES Unit 1 Remain Offline

Published Sep 13, 2026 · via El Nuevo Día

LUMA Energy said it expects a power deficiency Sunday evening, though smaller than Saturday's, as two major generation units remained out of service after hundreds of thousands of customers lost power the previous day. Costa Sur Units 5 and 6 and AES Puerto Rico's Unit 1 had gone offline. Genera PR spokesman Iván Báez said Unit 5, which had a maximum capacity of 410 MW, was undergoing repairs to a boiler feedwater valve and could take about 48 hours to fix.

Unit 6, with 365 MW capacity, returned to service overnight after repairs completed in under 24 hours. AES had reported Saturday morning that its Unit 1 went offline for a "technical condition" but gave no further details; El Nuevo Día requested an update from AES but had not received one by publication. LUMA's website showed a projected peak reserve deficit of 303 megawatts by mid-morning Sunday.

The utility said Costa Sur 5 and AES 1 would remain unavailable for the evening peak between 6 and 9 p.m., and that it would dispatch customer battery storage from the CBES program, expected to contribute about 90 MW to help offset the generation shortfall.