OVERSIGHT BOARD TAKES LEGAL ACTION TO PROTECT INDEPENDENCE OF PUERTO RICO’S ENERGY REGULATOR
Oversight Board Continues to Support Rooftop Solar; Prevailing in This Action Will Not Result in Changes to Rooftop Solar Program; Determining Public Interest Should Not be Left to Special Interests
San Juan, PR – July 26, 2024 – The Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico announced today that it filed a complaint against Governor Pedro R. Pierluisi in the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico to nullify Act 10-2024 so the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau can continue to operate free from political influence.
The independence of the Energy Bureau is a key element of Puerto Rico’s energy transformation. Act 10 undermines the Energy Bureau’s autonomy and in doing so discards the expertise of the Energy Bureau to serve the desires of special interests. The purpose of the Oversight Board’s action is to restore the Energy Bureau’s ability to regulate Puerto Rico’s energy system as it deems appropriate.
“The Puerto Rico Government created and strengthened the Energy Bureau to oversee the energy system after years of political mismanagement that led the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority into bankruptcy and left Puerto Rico with a dilapidated electric grid,” said the Oversight Board’s Executive Director Robert F. Mujica, Jr. “Creating an independent Energy Bureau was the right decision.”
In bringing this action, the Oversight Board does not seek to end net metering as Act 10’s advocates have alleged, nor does it seek to impose change to the net metering program. Rather, this action seeks only to remove the corrosive and dangerous politically motivated restrictions on the Energy Bureau, which threaten to undermine the progress the Energy Bureau has made in recent years for the benefit of the people of Puerto Rico. Invalidating Act 10 would not change the terms for those PREPA customers who already installed solar panels.
“Renewable energy is a key element of Puerto Rico’s energy transformation, and net metering is a very important tool for making rooftop solar more accessible and affordable. Determining what is in the public interest, however, should not be left to special interests,” Mujica said. “In 2019 the government of Puerto Rico understood this and removed the politics from the energy system. The new independent regulator was to determine energy policy based on facts and data, not politics and special interest influences. Let the Energy Bureau do its work.”