Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority Asked to Redo Long-Term Resource Plan

The Puerto Rico Energy Commission on March 14 found that the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s proposed integrated resource plan did not comply with the agency’s regulation and prior orders. The agency said that the plan includes a scenario titled “Energy System Modernization Plan,” which does not meet the regulatory requirement to use a capacity expansion model to develop least cost resource plans. The scenario, which was used as a major component of the proposed action plan, assumes a more restricted deployment of solar and battery storage compared to the other scenarios, according to the order.

The plan has the effect of almost fixing the amount of solar and storage in a way that the capacity expansion model has “little choice when deploying these cost effective resources,” the agency found. The commission said that PREPA did not seek a waiver to use the fixed-resource approach to develop the main aspects of the scenario.

Last May, the agency, asked PREPA to file an updated IRP ahead of the March 2020 schedule to reflect possible changes in demand and generation as a result of hurricanes Irma and Maria, which devastated the island’s power grid in 2017. The commission determined the need to update the 20-year resource plan before the mandatory three-year review date, in order to assess any effects from the hurricanes on the island’s electric market. In January 2018, in the wake of the hurricanes, the commission proposed rules to encourage microgrids to facilitate quicker power restoration and to integrate more renewable energy supplies to strengthen the system’s resilience to disruptions