LUMA has fewer workers than the budget – Puerto Rico metro

company Loma Energy It does not have the number of employees included in the budgetas specified by The first decision on the scales The private operator of the transmission and distribution system published by Puerto Rico Energy Office (PRNE).

Despite the fact that in June 2021, when LUMA officially started operations on the island, it had more workers than it budgeted, by last May, the situation at the company was the opposite. at that moment, The company’s budget was about 1,400 workers while its workforce was just over 1,200 workers.

It should be noted that LUMA asked PREB to allow it to report on total workforce and total vacancies rather than the budgeted total number of employees by employee type and the actual total number of employees by employee type.

“The Energy Bureau determines that these are important metrics at this time. So andEnergy Bureau rejects LUMA’s request‘, reads the document.

PREB decision indicates that a file Average employee turnoverdefined as the number of laid-off employees divided by the total number of employees at the end of the period, corresponds to the data from US Bureau of Labor Statistics on average class rates for utilities as of May 2022.

Few Vehicles

From the orthodontic side, it is indicated that The current average number of vehicles in service is less than half of the amount announced during fiscal year 2020.

During a technical conference in February 2021, LUMA indicated that several vehicles were in poor condition. The Bureau of Energy is still interested in understanding how many vehicles are available For PREPA and LUMA to ensure that both organizations have sufficient resources to meet operational needs,” the resolution states.

The decision was published a little over a year after the contract awarded under the PPP model came into force and after several investigations opened by PREB itself after several blackouts and/or explosions in the electrical system.

concluded that The consortium did not improve the service for which it was contracted.

There was no improvement with LUMA

The data is part of a decision in which the Bureau of Energy states that Puerto Rico’s energy service has not been improved under the operating contract for the PREPA Transmission and Distribution System.

After peaking in operator transition time in June 2021, SAIDI has been reduced through January 2022. However, from the beginning of this year to the present, outage duration has been increasing. The annual average for SAIDI has been consistently increasing from June to the present, well above the historical (“baseline”) scale of 1,243 minutes, according to data revealed by PREB.

On the other hand, the average number of outages per customer (SAIFI) has fluctuated since the transition in June 2021, and peaked in October 2021. “Although it is down from that peak, it is still at the same level as at the start of the transition, so There is no noticeable improvement in the frequency of outages, PREB concludes.They add that on an annual basis, the device shows a slight improvement compared to the similar level in June 2021 at the time of the transition.

The regulator has given LUMA until September 1, 2022 to explain the reason for the poor performance of some of its metrics.

You can listen to this episode of the Con Los Editores podcast about whether a LUMA contract could be canceled: