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Many places go through massive power outages from time to time. A few years ago there was a truly massive one that affected much of the Northeast and Midwest of the USA. It appears it’s Puerto Rico’s turn. This one was island-wide. PR may be small by global standards, but in reality it isn’t that small. An island-wide outage is quite a big deal, IMO.
Apparently, this one was created by a fire at a power plant.
Quote:
Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in Puerto Rico still were without power Saturday, more than two days after the start of an island-wide outage that began with a fire at a power plant.
Quote:
An unspecified failure led to a fire at the plant outside the town of Guayanilla on the southwest coast around 8:45 p.m. Wednesday, cutting power across Puerto Rico, Kevin Acevedo, vice president of LUMA Energy, has said. Firefighters have since extinguished the flames.
All customers lost power initially, Josue Colon, Puerto Rico's lead telecommunications and infrastructure engineer, told reporters Thursday, "because all the generating units went offline."
The exact cause wasn't immediately known, the utility has said.
Yup, and not trying to minimize this, but Maria was worse, much worse. I still have the shipping receipts from the 2017 emergency purchase of a diesel fixed (anchored) generator. None to be had in the island of course; massive looting and theft of portables at the airport and port of San Juan by internal employees (to include parcel companies like FDX and UPS btw). You couldn't really bank on having a mainland shipped generator make it to the intended hands. Policing was effectively limited to looting control at the supply points (gas stations, ATMs, water distribution points), but otherwise you were on. your. own. Car accidents were summarily dismissed in plain sight, armed federal law enforcement hiding in plain clothes at gas lines to police cash theft, and the National Guard controlling access to the ports.
I had to go with a forwarding company (air freight) in KMIA, as mainland companies stopped shipping freight to PR addresses. Then straight up sign on my fathers behalf (yes, forging signatures along the way, and I'm damn proud of it) since I had phone and internet connectivity, in order to get one of those things on an amerijet 767 for him to pick it up with a flatbed and a friend at the airport in person.
I begged to airlift them outta that place, but they decided to anchor down. My father is still low-key ptsd about extended periods of no electricity, and this is man that has gone through dozens of hurricanes through his life mind you. My most memorable was Hugo in 89 as a kid. I still remember collecting roofline water with him after we made a pool out of plugging the drain out of our old home's garage roof, then boiling it. A native boricua's version of family time for us I suppose lol.
They've been rocking that generator ever since, and it has been a great life stabilizer for them. This power outage was a nothingburger for them.
To your macro point, the island continues to "enjoy" its second class status, the labor strife and debt restructuring of PREPA continues even after the federal case has been adjudicated. LUNA (the current contractor managing the power company now), has been hit and miss. Price gouging complaints and not much improvement on the hardware side, as your article points out.
The infrastructure solutions required to bring it up to 1st world standards of power delivery remain stonewalled by political cowardice and corruption. It's not a technical problem; the geographic nature of the place is a red herring. It's a political will problem.
The irony of course, is that last winter I got slammed with a similar week long power AND water outage in precious fIrSt wOrLd tExAs. The irony of these TX denizens mocking PR about "3rd world" infrastructure in 2017, did not escape me one bit. Cheers!
Many places go through massive power outages from time to time. A few years ago there was a truly massive one that affected much of the Northeast and Midwest of the USA. It appears it’s Puerto Rico’s turn. This one was island-wide. PR may be small by global standards, but in reality it isn’t that small. An island-wide outage is quite a big deal, IMO.
Apparently, this one was created by a fire at a power plant.
I've worked in the power generation sector going on 37 years. Something with this power outage just doesn't add up. An incident in one power plant should not have caused an island-wide outage of this magnitude.
There are safeguards designed to confine and isolate electrical failures within each power plant. System relays are supposed to disconnect damaged high voltage equipment from the power grid. A power outage of this magnitude caused by an incident in one power plant, sounds like a lack of preventive maintenance within that power plant and the substation through which that plant's electrical power flows through. Something should have relayed way before the failure affected the grid.
I've worked in the power generation sector going on 37 years. Something with this power outage just doesn't add up. An incident in one power plant should not have caused an island-wide outage of this magnitude.
There are safeguards designed to confine and isolate electrical failures within each power plant. System relays are supposed to disconnect damaged high voltage equipment from the power grid. A power outage of this magnitude caused by an incident in one power plant, sounds like a lack of preventive maintenance within that power plant and the substation through which that plant's electrical power flows through. Something should have relayed way before the failure affected the grid.
Just my 2 centavos.
If you can read Spanish, draw your own conclusions from the following article. As I suspected, this incident was caused by a severe lack of planned maintenance.
If you can read Spanish, draw your own conclusions from the following article. As I suspected, this incident was caused by a severe lack of planned maintenance.
I've visited PR a few times, the San Juan area and loved it. I have a few questions about generators (smaller ones you might have at home for an emergency) and power outages.
If you have a generator, how easy was it to buy gas or diesel fuel for it during a massive power outage? Are some gas stations still open, running on their own generators? How many gallons per day did you need for what size generator?
If you see the following video (despite it’s in Spanish) at a certain point the guy points the camera to the city from his high rise apartment in San Juan Metro during the blackout. He mentions, as it’s very clear what areas have power and what areas doesn’t, that most places are on independent generators. Point is that generator ownership is widespread. At such high ownership rates, getting fuel for those things can’t be too difficult except during the aftermath of a hurricane when things run low including gas.
Around 13:30. This is in the Guaynabo area of the San Juan MA. The humming of the generators can be heard.
I've visited PR a few times, the San Juan area and loved it. I have a few questions about generators (smaller ones you might have at home for an emergency) and power outages.
If you have a generator, how easy was it to buy gas or diesel fuel for it during a massive power outage? Are some gas stations still open, running on their own generators? How many gallons per day did you need for what size generator?
My daughter in laws family lives there. They have whole house generators and plenty of money to buy gas, but after the last big hurricane wiped out the power on the island they were only allowed to buy 1 gallon of gas per day and it took hours of standing in line.
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