New Smart Meter Initiative, Customer Service Text Notifications are latest efforts highlighted in LUMA’s year-end progress review of its “Building a Better Energy Future” Work Plan 

San Juan, Puerto Rico — December 12, 2023 – Today, LUMA shared progress updates on the historic island-wide initiatives underway to improve service reliability and customer support services as part of its “Building a Better Energy Future” work plan launched in September. In addition, as part of LUMA’s year-end progress review, LUMA announced two new major initiatives underway including (1) the FEMA-funded Meter Modernization Initiative (MMI), which will install over 1.5 million next-generation electric meters to further improve service reliability, and (2) the launch of new personalized Customer Service Text Notifications to update customers on reported service and billing requests.  

During the year-end review, and as part of a commitment to communicate regular updates to its customers and stakeholders, LUMA also highlighted the state of progress across a number of critical areas, with updates on its efforts to clear vegetation, modernize substations, replace poles and streetlights, install automation devices and deploy new and enhanced customer tools and communications.  

“We are committed to making progress every day and sharing regular updates with all Puerto Ricans. As part of that commitment, we’re very excited to announce two major initiatives, the Meter Modernization Initiative and Customer Service Text Notifications. These two initiatives will help build a better energy future for all our customers by providing LUMA with information we need to restore power more quickly when outages occur, while also providing text-based, timely updates along the way,” said Juan Saca, President and Chief Executive Officer of LUMA.  

Meter Modernization Initiative (MMI) 

Before Summer 2024, LUMA will begin the installation of over 1.5 million smart meters as part of the $876 million MMI, which over the next three years will bring more enhanced benefits to customers, including: 

1. Faster response and restoration of service through improved, remote outage detection technology. 
2. Support for new energy savings and efficiency programs to help customers lower their usage and costs. 
3. More accurate billing and greater customer control over monthly bills through better energy usage information.

“The acquisition of these meters represents a significant step in the quality of electricity service for subscribers in Puerto Rico, even more so when they will provide transparency in the electrical reading and greater security in the face of atmospheric events. These are issues that residents of Puerto Rico have historically claimed and that, therefore, are being addressed through this project that is being developed after a substantial allocation of FEMA funds. Our team at the Central Office of Recovery, Reconstruction and Resilience (COR3) will continue to work alongside FEMA and LUMA to expedite electric infrastructure projects that transform and strengthen service for customers,” said Manuel A. Laboy Rivera, Executive Director of COR3. 

Customer Service SMS Text Notifications 

Starting this month, LUMA’s new SMS service will allow customers who have registered cell phone numbers as part of their customer account to receive timely SMS text notifications on their initiated billing and service requests. This customer service improvement includes the following benefits: 

• Updates on service interruptions and emergency situations that have been reported by a customer, including estimated times of restoration to keep customers informed.
• Bill payment confirmations to ensure accurate and on-time payment.
• Updates on bill adjustment requests to increase transparency.

Building a Better Energy Future Work Plan Progress  

During LUMA’s year-end review of its Building a Better Future work plan, which was first announced three months ago, the company also provided the following series of updates on the progress made since September 13:  

• Installed over 1,200 grid automation devices totalingover 3,000 devices to-dateon critical infrastructure to make outage impacts smaller and shorter, as part of LUMA’s goal to install over 5,000 devices by July 2024. 
• Repaired and replaced over 1,000 utility poles across the island, totaling over10,300 to-date, to strengthen the system as part of LUMA’s goal to repair and replace 100,000 utility poles over the next five years. 
• Started reconstruction at three substations to improve service reliability and resiliency, to-date LUMA has started or completed upgrade and reconstruction work at 14 substations as part of LUMA’s goal to upgrade 50 existing substations and build six new substations over the next two years. 
• Cleared vegetation from over 200 miles of powerline rights-of-way across 59 municipalities, totaling 3,700 miles of T&D powerlines cleared to-date as part of LUMA’s goal to clear over 16,000 miles of powerlines over the next three years. 
• Installed 25,500 streetlights totaling over 78,000 streetlights installed to-date across 35 municipalities, with plans to impact all municipalities in 2024, as part of the FEMA-funded Community Streetlight Initiative to install over 300,000 streetlights over the next three years to make communities safer and more energy efficient.  
• In October, launched the Customer Battery Energy Sharing (CBES) initiative, a battery emergency demand response program to help improve service reliability across the island; five renewable service providers have joined the program and over 1,700 customers have enrolled since the program launched.

“While there is still much work to be done, we all should be proud of the enormous progress the nearly 4,500 men and women at LUMA have made in just three months since announcing our ‘Building a Better Energy Future’ work plan. My commitment is that we will continue to make progress every day, and will not stop until we build a better energy future for all those we proudly serve across Puerto Rico,” said Saca.   

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, cleaner, and affordable electrical service they deserve. As a customer-centric company, LUMA’s entire workforce of nearly 4,500 employees is focused on safely delivering an exceptional customer service experience to its 1.5 million customers.