More than 150,000 customers in Puerto Rico lost electricity service on Tuesday night, October 27. Iván Báez, vice president of Governmental and Public Affairs at Genera PR, told Noticentro that the generation shortage was caused by the abrupt exit of unit 5 at the San Juan Central plant, which had been producing 160 megawatts. Crews tried to return the unit to service, but it had problems with its lubrication pump, Báez said.
He added that the critical repairs team was working on the unit on Wednesday, October 28, and it would most likely return to service in the afternoon. Báez also said that at unit 2 of the Central Aguirre plant, maintenance was being performed on a fan that was vibrating and posed a safety issue for the equipment; it was repaired unsuccessfully on three occasions.
Separately, Ángel Figueroa Jaramillo, president of the electrical industry union UTIER, blamed the situation on a lack of maintenance and high operating costs. 'As these costs are high, there is no money for maintenance, and these companies, like all companies, have turned this into a business. They guarantee their income first, and if anything is left over they do maintenance,' he said.