The two highest ranking leaders of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority are out after several weeks of power outages have plagued the island.
On Monday the president of the board resigned. He was replaced Tuesday. On Wednesday the executive director resigned, and was immediately replaced.
After the resignation of the board president, Ralph Kreil Rivera, Gov. Pedro Pierluisi said, “Achieving the transformation and reconstruction of our energy system in Puerto Rico is one of my highest priorities. The situation with the electrical system that has been developing in recent days is unacceptable and the recurring technical failures in the electric power authority are unsustainable.
“It is essential that we make changes that allow us to advance that transformation that our people need,” Pierluisi said.
The board elected Fernando Gil Enseñat as the new board president on Tuesday. For the last 21 months Enseñat was director in the Infrastructure Area at Álvarez & Marsal in Washington, D.C. Prior to that he was Secretary of Housing for the Puerto Rico government January 2017 to January 2020.
Since the middle of 2017 PREPA has been in bankruptcy. Since December 2019 the process of legally advancing the PREPA Restructuring Support Agreement (the debt restructuring deal), has largely been frozen by various factors. As of May 2017, the authority had $9.25 billion in debt outstanding.
On Wednesday, Executive Director Efran Paredes offered his resignation to the board and the board accepted it. After what news organization El Nuevo Día reports was a 15-minute phone interview with Josué Colón, the board hired him as the new executive director.
“Josué Colón is the most knowledgeable and qualified person to lead the Electric Power Authority at this time,” Pierluisi said. “He is a great resource for Puerto Rico and he has my full trust. I have asked him for a comprehensive maintenance plan for all PREPA’s generating plants to ensure that the generation capacity meets the needs of our people. Lack of funds is no excuse, because our people want results.
“I am confident that these changes in the authority’s senior management will result in better administration and prevention regarding the lack of power generation,” Pierluisi said. “The mission is to end the blackouts.”
Paredes had been the authority’s executive director since August 2020. Colón served as PREPA executive director in the second half of 2012. He left due to a controversy concerning his retirement pension.
“We’ve seen many directors come and go and this will probably continue,” said Institute for Energy Economics and Finance Director of Finance Tom Sanzillo.
The private firm LUMA Energy took over the transmission and distribution system for electricity in Puerto Rico on June 1.
LUMA Energy’s directive was to drive changes in operations, Sanzillo said. It shares some responsibility with PREPA for the outages.