Puerto Rico considers raising electric bills amid mass outrage

Puerto Rico is holding key hearings on fee increase requests from private power companies that, if approved, could see the U.S. territory's average residential bill rise by at least 40% on an island with a high poverty rate and soaring cost of living, reports The Associated Press (AP).

Residents are balking as private power company officials overseeing the generation, transmission and distribution of power in Puerto Rico insist that additional funding is needed to modernize a crumbling grid that Hurricane Maria razed in 2017. The hearings, which do not include public input, began in mid-November and are scheduled to continue through late December. They are being held by Puerto Rico's Energy Bureau, which would decide whether to authorize the proposed increases. In total, the proposed new charges would raise a bill's base rate from $4 per month to more than $40, according to the Solar and Energy Storage Association of Puerto Rico and Solar United "The larger issue here is the impact on low-income people … on elderly people," P.J. Wilson, SESA's president, said in a phone interview on Tuesday.

One of the proposals from Luma, the company that oversees transmission and distribution of power on the island, calls for the residential fixed charge to increase from about $4 per month to $15 starting in January. "This request from Luma represents … an unjustified economic blow to households and families on the island," said Javier Rúa-Jovet, SESA's public policy director. He said in a phone interview that there is currently no analysis justifying that request.

Meanwhile, Wilson warned there are other repercussions related to recent requests for additional fixed charges. "It makes the financial case to go solar worse, and worse and worse," he said.

Puerto Rico, which once aimed to reach a 100% renewable energy system by 2050, has been distancing itself from that goal under the administration of Gov.

 Jenniffer González, a supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump.