The bill goes up while the lights go out
217 dollars a month for 800 kilowatts, and a blackout for 340,000
The same 800 kWh in both quarters.
A residential customer using 800 kilowatt hours a month went from paying 209.85 dollars to 217.84 in the April to June quarter. From the first of September, another 3.41 cents per kilowatt hour is added on top.
In June, a blackout left more than 340,000 customers in San Juan and the towns next to it without electricity during a heatwave.
The two are connected, and not in the obvious way. Part of the increase comes from the fuel adjustment: when the plants fail, generation runs on more expensive fuel, and that reaches the following month's bill. In other words, the breakdown does not only take the power away, it also makes it dearer.
That explains why the island's rooftops have spent a decade absorbing nearly all the new capacity. One hundred and sixty-three thousand families did not do a calculation about the climate: they did one about this bill.