After earthquakes, Puerto Rico’s major power plant to stay dark
Al JazeeraA series of quakes destroyed or damaged about 300 homes, and led Governor Wanda Vazquez to declare a state of emergency. Puerto Rico‘s top energy executive on Thursday warned that the United States territory’s largest power plant could remain off line for up to a year because of earthquake damage, evoking memories of lengthy power outages that followed a pair of hurricanes in 2017. Two days after being hit by Puerto Rico’s most powerful earthquake in more than a century, only half of the Caribbean island had power restored, Jose Ortiz, executive director of the public utility Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, told the island’s WKAQ radio. The PREPA-owned Costa Sur plant near the quake’s epicentre was seriously damaged and could remain off line “perhaps up to one year”, Ortiz said, raising the prospect of bringing in temporary generators with aid from the US Federal Emergency Management Agency. Yesterday when we were inspecting it with the people from FEMA we had to leave when an aftershock started.” Without the Costa Sur facility, Puerto Rico would need the rest of its power plants to operate at or near peak capacity to meet demand.