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Genera PR, the private entity responsible for operating the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s (PREPA) legacy facilities, urged the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau (PREB) on Wednesday to authorize its application to retire the Vega Baja plant, a request that has been outstanding since August, allowing it to commence demolition.
The private operator provided a letter from LUMA Energy endorsing the swift retirement of the combustion engines at Vega Baja, indicating that the units have long been deemed unavailable.
Genera PR, which started overseeing the PREPA plants in January 2023, had initiated the decommissioning process for the Vega Baja plant earlier in the year but requested the island’s energy regulator to keep the preliminary decommissioning plan confidential, claiming it might result in confusion and constitutes a trade secret.
The private operator stated that the draft plan submitted on April 17 contains sensitive details that are “inherently dynamic and provisional.”
“As a developing document, the draft decommissioning plan represents current strategies and proposals that depend on further assessment and adjustments by the Energy Bureau. Such modifications could considerably change its content and guidance,” Genera PR noted in a request to the PREB dated April 24. “Revealing this information at this point could result in misunderstandings and misinterpretations concerning the decommissioning strategy, emphasizing the necessity for confidentiality.”
Adding to the necessity for confidentiality, Genera PR pointed out that the draft decommissioning plan encompasses crucial information for advancing an ongoing public procurement process that is still under evaluation by the PREB.
“This environment of change demands that the plan be kept confidential per Article 4.2 of Regulation 8815,” Genera stated. “Revealing the contents of the draft decommissioning plan at this stage would not only violate Regulation 8815 but also jeopardize the transparency of the ongoing procurement process, thus undermining Genera’s role as the issuing authority.”
The draft plan, which is part of the protocol Genera must adhere to for decommissioning power plants, details how Genera plans to address, execute, document, and finalize the decommissioning services, which include permitting, demolition, decontamination, waste disposal, and dismantling in preparation for new battery energy storage units.
Simultaneously, Genera mentioned that it has issued a request for proposals for the demolition of the plant.
