An explosion that occurred this morning at the substation in LUMA Energy in Jayuya left the entire town without electricity, confirmed the mayor, Jorge Gonzalez Otero.
The regional manager of operations in the consortium, Belmaries Torres, told El Nuevo Día that they still do not know what caused the incident. The event, according to the company, affected a majority of clients in Jayuya and some in Utuado. The number of affected customers, estimated by LUMA, is 6,200. This figure is derived from the number of service accounts, so the total number of people affected by not having electricity is greater.
“We had an event at 5:50 in the morning at the Jayuya substation, where that event caused more than six thousand customers without service. Currently, we have the substation and operations personnel identifying all the damage so that, in the fastest and safest way, we can restore service for customers in Jayuya and some in Utuado, ”he said by phone.
Asked if the electricity service for affected customers would be extended past noon, Torres answered in the affirmative.
“Yes. If I tell you… it is a very complex job of what has to be done there. I dare not say before noon or following noon. You have to give them their space to identify everything that is affected and how to evaluate those alternatives,” said the official without specifying details.
González Otero, for his part, maintained that the emergency began at around 5:56 am. The facilities are located in the Santa Clara sector of the Jayuya Abajo neighborhood.
“An explosion occurred at the substation. We are completely without power and all the security agencies are there: Firefighters, Puerto Rico Police and Municipal Emergency Management,” said the mayor, when the fire that caused the combustion had not yet been extinguished.
At the time of this publication, fire units had already controlled the emergency at the scene. The Explosives Division of the Police also intervened in the incident and will carry out its own investigation of the events.
Torres classified the evaluation of damages in the substation as a “complex” job due to the amount of materials and components that must be checked in the electrical infrastructure premises.
“I say that it is complex, because a substation does not have a single piece, it has several teams that together make it possible for us to distribute energy and they are identifying everything that is there. Definitely, there must be something affected and things unaffected. From there, we start to identify how we are going to establish the service and I understand that there must be alternatives, but they are being identified and until I have that detailed information, I should not say it”, he said.
To questions from this medium, Torres might not specify when was the last maintenance that LUMA Energy gave to this substation or if they were aware of previous failures.
“That information I do not have,” he said.
“How often are substations like this maintained?” insisted this medium.
“Tell you the exact date, I don’t have it. The Department establishes a work plan to carry out this maintenance. How often? I do not have that work plan available to show you how often they do maintenance on the different components of the substations,” Torres asserted.
The mayor assured questions from this newspaper that the blackouts that occur in Jayuya every week for several months are “frequent.”
He also pointed out that LUMA Energy’s response to power outages is “late” and that the consortium never tells him exactly what the blackouts are due to.
“They (LUMA Energy staff) are always making excuses and I tell them: ‘This is a lack of staff, period and that’s it.’ Sometimes with a single brigade they want to deal with the entire situation of Utuado, Adjuntas and Jayuya, and since Jayuya is always the most distant area from Utuado, they work first in Utuado and then Adjuntas and then Jayuya”González Otero pointed out.
This emergency occurs less than a week following the service exit of 10 substations in the Caguas regionan incident that left over 42,000 LUMA Energy customers without power.