On August 7, 2018, an untrimmed tree fell on an electrical transmission line in Puerto Rico, leaving 130,000 people in San Juan without power for an hour and a half. Big deal, right? When compared to the immense and long-lasting damage done to the island’s grid by Hurricane Maria the year before, a brief power… Read More
As the cyberattack on the Ukraine grid showed the world, electric utilities are the new target for cyber terrorism. A survey conducted by the website Utility Drive reflects the industry’s rapidly growing concern. In 2015 and 2016, utilities ranked threats from physical and cyberattacks as their sixth largest challenge. In 2017, these threats jumped to number one.… Read More
“There is no backup system to the grid.” – Gretchen Bakke from her book, The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future On March 15, 2018, the US government made a chilling announcement. Russian hackers have been successfully infiltrating the US electric grid over the last year, maybe longer. While rumors have been… Read More
On September 6, 2017, Hurricane Irma hit Puerto Rico and left a million people without power. Two weeks later, on September 20, Hurricane Maria finished off the job and destroyed nearly 100% of the island’s grid. In early October, the governor, Ricardo Rosselló, optimistically predicted that 95% of the power would be restored by mid-December. But,… Read More
Puerto Rico has become an island of generators. Almost 10 weeks after Hurricane Maria tore across the island, more than 40% of Puerto Rico still lacks access to grid electricity. Actually, this number is the power company’s (PREPA) self-reported electrical generation capacity. No one really knows the number of people still without power so it’s… Read More
