San Juan, Puerto Rico, March 22, 2022 – As part of its quarterly performance metrics filing to the Puerto Rico Energy Board (PREB), LUMA provided data demonstrating the company’s continued improved performance across key operational areas including electric reliability, customer service and renewable energy. The Quarterly Performance Metrics filing, which presents data for the period from December 2021 through February 2022, shows continuous improvement by LUMA’s over 3,000 utility workers over the course of the company’s first nine months of operations. The positive trends across key areas have continued in spite of significant and ongoing operational and infrastructure challenges inherited by LUMA as a result of decades of neglect by the previous operator.
“While there is much more work to do, LUMA’s 3,000 men and women, and our company wide commitment to doing what is best for our customers, is making a real and measurable difference for Puerto Rico,” said LUMA President & CEO Wayne Stensby. “Since our first day of operations, and despite significant operational and infrastructure challenges, LUMA has remained highly focused on improving the infrastructure, providing better customer service and supporting renewable energy adoption. This latest performance metrics report shows how hard work and commitment to training can and will result progress and improved performance.”
Operational Improvement: 18% Fewer and 45% Shorter Outages
While issues such as weather and legacy operational issues remain significant factors impacting day-to-day reliability, the trend over the quarter highlighted that the number of sustained outages experienced by the average customer across the island reduced by 18% when compared to the period June through August 2021. Likewise, the average outage duration for each customer served decreased, with an improvement of as much as 45% from June 2021 to February 2022. To put this in perspective, LUMA reported that the average outage duration for each customer served in the third quarter (December to February 2022) lasted 97 minutes on average compared to 177 minutes in the quarter spanning June to August 2021. “While we never want any of our customers to be without power – thanks to our ongoing efforts to upgrade the system by replacing poles, wires and equipment and improving the restoration process, as well as some favorable weather, we saw fewer and shorter outages across the system last quarter,’’ Stensby said.
Key Operational Improvement: Faster Customer Service – Less Than a Minute On-hold
LUMA also achieved shorter wait times both for customers visiting one of LUMA’s twenty-five customer services centers and for those calling one of its on-island customer contact centers. In the period from December through February 2022, LUMA representatives answered calls 94% faster than the first period of operations – on average, customer wait times were less than one minute. Likewise, customers spent 25% less time waiting in line at service centers. Improved customer service also resulted in 44% fewer customer complaints during the quarter.
“Our customer’s time is valuable – better and faster service is what our customers deserve, and we are working hard every day to build a world class customer service experience,” said Stensby.
Positive Improvement Across Multiple Performance Metrics
In addition to improvements in reliability and customer service in the third quarter, LUMA delivered additional improvements in continued customer connections to renewable energy and the expansion of the vehicle fleet used to repair and maintain the electric grid:
- Increased renewable energy capacity by 42% compared to June 2021 by connecting more than 17,000 customers with rooftop solar representing an additional 95MW of distributed generation.
- Put in service more than 590 additional vehicles (an increase of approximately 65%), enabling our crews to attend to outages quicker.
Continuing Focus on Employee Safety
LUMA also reported that while the overall trend across the past nine months on the key metrics that measure safety performance have been positive, the company observed an uptick in safety statistics for the quarter. “LUMA’s highest priority is the safety, health and wellbeing of our more than 3,000 employees,” Stensby emphasized. “One safety incident, no matter how small, is one too many. Safety and safety training are at the heart of everything we do and we will not be satisfied by anything less than continued improvement in this critical area.”
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, durable and affordable electrical grid they deserve. As a customer-centric company, LUMA’s entire workforce of more than 3,000 employees is focused on safely delivering an exceptional customer service experience to its 1.5 million customers.
