After The Hurricanes, Puerto Rico Eyes A Future As A Tech Hub

Late on a Sunday evening in Puerto Rico weeks ago, a breaker exploded at a power station. After a fraught five-month recovery effort following Hurricanes Irma and Maria, parts of the island were plunged once more into darkness.

- Rob Marvin

A few days later, Governor Ricardo Rosselló Nevares stood onstage at a Puerto Rico economic forum in New York City, asking and answering his own rhetorical question: If he had known he’d have to deal with not one but two Category 4 hurricanes, would he still have taken the job?

Rosselló’s answer (obviously) was yes. Power has been restored to more than 79 percent of homes, and the governor had hoped to reach 90 percent by March. Unfortunately, outages continue to plague Puerto Rico, as the island’s overmatched energy company struggles to fix outdated infrastructure.

Financial challenges also remain: Puerto Rico asked for $94.4 billion from Congress to rebuild the island’s infrastructure. It got about $16 billion, with $6.8 billion in disaster relief aid split between Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands and another $2 billion toward Puerto Rico’s energy grid.

Restoring the electrical grid falls on the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), which itself is bankrupt and struggling to get the lights back on for its almost 500,000 customers. Due to inefficient and outdated machinery, the governor said, PREPA currently spends around 60 percent of its budget maintaining inefficient generators and power plants. This includes the two on the north end of the island, where explosions and fires led to the fresh blackout. A federal judge recently approved a $300 million loan to keep PREPA afloat, but that’s more or less a Band-Aid. The governor’s office is hoping to reduce the energy debt and modernize the grid by reforming and privatizing the energy sector.

“You become a pseudo-expert on energy after going through a hurricane,” Rosselló said.