Casa Pueblo, an environmental organization based in Adjuntas, proposed on Friday that Puerto Rico transform its energy model and make solar power its main generation source to reduce electricity costs and address the electric system’s crisis. Executive director Arturo Massol Deyá said Puerto Ricans were lied to for years with promises that privatization and the gasification of generating plants would lower energy costs.
The organization noted that since LUMA Energy took over grid operation in 2021 and Genera PR assumed generation in 2023, infrastructure problems, system instability and blackouts persist, and cited economist and professor José Caraballo Cueto’s data showing electricity costs rose 37% over the past five years. Casa Pueblo argued that because Puerto Rico produces no oil, its derivatives or natural gas, fuel costs depend on external factors like the international market and transportation.
Its proposal calls for solar energy to reach all subscribers, whether or not they have panels or batteries, with a daytime rate in which the fuel adjustment charge is zero and fossil fuels used only when necessary. It also rejected LUMA’s claims about net metering saturation and urged that government investments and federal reconstruction funds go to renewable infrastructure and community projects, opposing gasification, gas pipelines and a proposed submarine cable to the Dominican Republic.
In Adjuntas, Casa Pueblo has developed more than 400 solar installations and five community microgrids.