An analysis by the Center for Development Studies (CED) of the University of Puerto Rico’s Río Piedras campus finds that energy costs rose more in Puerto Rico than in the United States. It found that in fiscal year 2021, the 12 months before LUMA Energy took over grid management in July 2021, the average cost of a kilowatt-hour in Puerto Rico was $0.1963, compared with $0.1078 in the United States.
By fiscal year 2026 the averages had risen to $0.269 in Puerto Rico and $0.1404 in the United States, increases of about 37% and 30% respectively. CED director José Caraballo Cueto said the study compared fiscal year 2021 and fiscal year 2026 averages because Puerto Rico shows large monthly variations that the United States does not, and concluded that five years after LUMA’s entry, energy costs rose seven percentage points more in Puerto Rico, so the increase cannot be blamed only on fuel costs.
The analysis also examined service quality using Energy Bureau metrics, including the SAIDI index, which measures the average duration of outages per customer; the CED found it rose 9% between fiscal years 2022 and 2026. Caraballo Cueto concluded that Puerto Rico’s energy is more expensive, more volatile and of lower quality than in the US, and that the concession to LUMA did not lower energy costs as expected.