KEY ACTIONS AND PROGRESS HIGHLIGHT EFFORTS BY LUMA TEAM TO ADDRESS CRITICAL ENERGY PRIORITIES OF IMPORTANCE TO ITS 1.5 MILLION CUSTOMERS.
San Juan, Puerto Rico, Dec. 20, 2024 – As part of a review of its 2024 progress, LUMA released its yearly summary of actions that documents the scope of progress to address key energy priorities of importance to its 1.5 million customers, including improvements to: service reliability, grid resiliency, renewable energy adoption and access, energy efficiency, emergency preparedness, and customer service. The actions undertaken by the more than 4,000 LUMA team members have helped address ongoing legacy challenges while focusing on key customer concerns, such as service reliability, by using technology to prevent 116 million service interruption minutes over the last 12 months.
“Despite ongoing legacy challenges, LUMA stayed focused on what’s most important – improving electric service for our customers. This year, we’ve made significant progress in key areas, including clearing hazardous vegetation and installing new streetlights, as well as improving overall grid resiliency and reliability. Most importantly, we want to extend our deep thanks to our customers and local partners for their support as we continue working toward our shared goal of building a better energy future for Puerto Rico,” said Juan Saca, LUMA President and CEO.
LUMA’s Historic Year of Progress
Throughout 2024, LUMA took action to address the priorities that matter most to its 1.5 million customers, meeting and even exceeding year-end goals across multiple programs, including pole replacements, vegetation management and substation modernization. Key areas of progress made to date include:
Increasing System Reliability & Resiliency
- Replacing 20,500 utility poles to strengthen the electric system against storms, meeting year-end goal
- Starting or completing 44 equipment upgrades at 22 substations to minimize large-scale outages, exceeding year-end goal by 18%
- Trimming 5,400 miles of vegetation from powerlines to prevent downed lines and reduce outages, exceeding year-end goal by 7%
- Installing 9,300+ grid automation devices to reduce the size and duration of outages, preventing 271 million service interruption minutes
Expanding Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency
- Connecting 135,000 customers to rooftop solar, representing 940 megawatts of renewable energy added to the grid
- Installing 161,800 LED streetlights across all 78 municipalities to increase community safety and energy efficiency
- Distributing 51,000+ free energy efficiency kits to customers, resulting in over 19,800 megawatt hours of energy savings
Improving Customer Service & Emergency Preparedness
- Supporting $155+ million in critical financial assistance to help customers in need
- Launching a monthly customer email newsletter to expand customer outreach and engagement efforts, delivering a newsletter to customer inboxes every month since August
- Completing more than 49,700 employee hours of emergency training and two mock exercises to prepare LUMA team members to safely and quickly restore power during emergencies
- Providing customers with restoration updates on reported service interruptions through SMS text messaging
LUMA made these significant upgrades, while also doing the important work of completing routine daily maintenance on critical equipment across Puerto Rico.
Committed to Continued Progress in 2025
Looking ahead to 2025, LUMA will continue its focus on making real improvements across the energy priorities that are important to customers – improving reliability and reducing outages, strengthening the system against storms, prioritizing emergency preparedness and response, expanding renewable energy, adding more ways to keep customers informed, and providing more tools to help customers save on their energy use and costs – all to build a brighter energy future for Puerto Rico.
About LUMA LUMA is a Puerto Rican company that, since June 1, 2021, operates and manages the electric power transmission and distribution system in Puerto Rico. LUMA is a company driven by a mission to transform the electrical transmission and distribution system to provide all Puerto Ricans with the reliable, resilient, clean, and affordable electrical service they deserve. As a customer-centric company, LUMA’s entire workforce is focused on safely delivering an exceptional customer service experience to its 1.5 million customers.
