Puerto Rico's electric bills are about to go up, and the reasons go deeper than a war in the Middle East.

When the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed last month, oil prices surged past $100 a barrel. For an archipelago that runs on imported fossil fuels for more than 90% of its electricity, that's not a distant headline. It shows up on your bill. A rate adjustment is coming at the end of March, and higher costs kick in for April.

— This month’s lead story comes from Ysabelle Kempe, associate editor of Canary Media.

We're also tracking a $1.2 billion emergency generation contract that's raising serious questions, the federal funding cancellations that wiped out community solar programs years in the making, and what a Jones Act waiver actually does for a place that is dependent on imported fuel. Spoiler: not as much as you'd hope.

And this issue marks the debut of Energy Workforce Watch — Connect Puerto Rico's new monthly analysis of hiring signals across Puerto Rico's energy and infrastructure sectors.

This month's issue also draws on reporting from News is My Business, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), 9 Millones, and TIME.

Global oil prices are hovering around $100 a barrel after the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed. Puerto Rico, which runs on imported fossil fuels for more than 90% of its electricity, is directly exposed (Canary Media).

About 60% of Puerto Rico's generating capacity comes from oil-fired plants, most built in the 1960s and '70s. Puerto Rico's electricity regulator adjusts fuel-cost rates every three months. The next adjustment is set for the end of March — meaning higher bills start in April.

For an archipelago where median household income is around $26,000 a year and electricity is already among the most expensive in the U.S., that's a real hit. After Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the fuel-cost portion of electric rates jumped nearly 50%.

Governor González-Colón has backed plans to expand gas generation and weakened the 2019 law committing Puerto Rico to ditching fossil fuels by 2050.

Ysabelle Kempe is associate editor at Canary Media.

The Trump administration issued a 60-day Jones Act waiver to ease fuel shipments during the Middle East conflict. But analysts say it is unlikely to offset the energy price increases hitting Puerto Rico (News is My Business).

The waiver temporarily allows foreign-flagged vessels to carry fuel and goods between U.S. ports, loosening a law that normally restricts that trade to U.S.-built, U.S.-flagged, and U.S.-owned ships. Puerto Rico has been at the center of Jones Act debates for years, given its dependence on imported fuel and limited shipping options during emergencies. Similar waivers were issued after Hurricane María in 2017 and Hurricane Fiona in 2022.

Even with more shipping flexibility, Puerto Rico still faces pressure from global fuel markets. The waiver doesn't change the price of oil itself. Policy groups across the ideological spectrum, including Cato, the Heritage Foundation, and the Center for American Progress, agree the waiver offers modest benefits at best and reflects deeper structural problems with U.S. maritime law. Analysts point to expanded solar, battery storage, and grid upgrades as the long term path to reducing Puerto Rico's exposure to fuel market swings.

News is My Business is Puerto Rico's first English-language digital business newspaper, founded in 2010.

This spring, Connect Puerto Rico is convening small, off-the-record listening sessions focused on how information about Puerto Rico's energy development moves — and how gaps in that flow shape real outcomes.

We're looking to connect with people who:

If this sounds like you, please fill out the short interest form here: Connect Puerto Rico — Energy Listening Interest Form. Or share it with someone who should be part of the conversation.

We're reviewing interest forms through early April and scheduling April–May sessions now.

Puerto Rico's Financial Oversight and Management Board is questioning how a little-known Florida company landed a 10-year, $1.2 billion contract for emergency power generation despite its own procurement office flagging serious concerns about the company's financial capacity (IEEFA).

Power Expectations reported just $17 million in annual revenues — roughly 100 times the company's reported annual revenues. The FOMB found the company failed to demonstrate relevant experience, didn't provide binding supplier agreements, and scored lowest among all bidders. The FOMB explicitly compared the situation to the post-María Whitefish scandal, when a Montana firm with two employees landed a $300 million grid reconstruction contract before it was canceled in controversy.

The contract is for fossil-fueled generation — LNG or diesel — even though LUMA Energy's own resource adequacy study found that deploying utility-scale battery storage already in development would improve grid reliability nearly 20 times more effectively than adding new gas capacity.

If the Power Expectations contract, a new 530-MW Energiza gas plant, and an ongoing procurement for 3,000 MW of additional capacity all move forward, Puerto Rico risks locking itself into excess fossil fuel infrastructure; it will have to retire those plants ahead of schedule to meet its 100% renewable target by 2050.

Cathy Kunkel is an energy consultant at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).

The Trump administration canceled $26 million in federal grants in January, erasing years of work by a Salinas neighborhood association to build one of Puerto Rico's most promising community energy cooperatives (9 Millones).

The La Margarita Residents Association had partnered with Solar United Neighbors to bring 150 solar systems to low-income families in Salinas through Abeyno Coop. Many residents have medical conditions that depend on continuous power. Three people in the community died while waiting for the panels.

The Trump administration redirected $369 million from the Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund away from community solar programs — and toward Genera PR and LUMA Energy. Governor González-Colón publicly supported the move.

The DOE justified the cuts by framing rooftop solar as a national security risk. Community leaders disputed that claim, pointing out that rooftop solar customers actually helped prevent blackouts last summer.

A second cooperative, Pirucho Coop in Caguas — Puerto Rico's first energy cooperative, founded in 2019 — also lost a $1 million DOE grant, setting back its path to financial self-sufficiency by three to four years.

Juan A. Hernández is a journalist with 34 years of experience covering the executive branch, worker unions, and communities.

Laura M. Quintero is the editor-in-chief of 9 Millones, and specializes in investigative journalism and Solutions Journalism.

Puerto Rico's federal renewable energy programs for vulnerable residents have been gutted, even as federal agencies build solar-powered, hurricane-rated infrastructure for their own operations on the archipelago, according to an op-ed in TIME.

The Trump administration has blocked hundreds of millions of dollars intended for rooftop solar and battery storage for Puerto Rican households. Meanwhile, federal agencies are investing in resilient renewable systems for their own facilities — including a fully solar-powered array on Mona Island designed to withstand hurricane-force winds.

About 163,000 households have pursued some form of energy independence, but the programs that helped the most vulnerable access rooftop solar and battery storage are gone. The grid sits at roughly 7% clean energy, outages and rates keep rising, and the Financial Oversight and Management Board just approved a $4 billion natural gas contract with New Fortress Energy — a company that has flagged its own bankruptcy risk.

Israel Melendez Ayala is a historian and writer. He publishes a biweekly newsletter, Crítica.

Job postings are one of the clearest signals of where investment is moving.

Every week, I scan postings across Puerto Rico's energy, infrastructure, and policy sectors. I track who's hiring, for what, and what it tells us about development on the ground. I tag roles by sector and funding signal, publish a weekly pulse on LinkedIn, and dig into the patterns here every month.

This month: execution over expansion.

Hiring in March told a consistent story: execute the projects in motion, keep existing assets running, and manage the compliance requirements that come with billions in federal recovery funding still moving through the system.

TRC Companies — an engineering and consulting firm that developed Puerto Rico's post-María distribution standards for PREPA, recently acquired by WSP — posted multiple distribution engineering and construction management roles at the same time, entry level through senior, design through execution. That kind of layered staffing points to an active project pipeline.

Black & Veatch, which holds the program management contract for PRASA's east region capital program, added engineering leadership for water and infrastructure work in Guaynabo. 

LUMA Energy, the private operator of Puerto Rico's transmission and distribution system, posted a senior grid protection and automation role, signaling continued investment in reliability infrastructure.

Maintenance roles at Punta Lima  — Puerto Rico's 26-megawatt wind farm in Naguabo, rebuilt after Hurricane María and back online in early 2024 — signal sustained commitment to keeping existing renewable assets running.

Federal recovery implementation roles from HORNE and IEM, contractors supporting disaster recovery program management and HUD compliance respectively, remain in steady demand.

Taken together, March's hiring activity suggests Puerto Rico's energy and infrastructure buildout is in an execution phase. Capital is deployed, projects are staffed, and the compliance infrastructure to manage federal recovery funding is holding steady.

The hiring reflects work that is funded and underway. For investors and developers watching Puerto Rico's market, the pipeline is real. The question is whether the policy environment and the grid itself can keep pace.

Energy Workforce Watch tracks hiring signals across Puerto Rico's energy, infrastructure, and policy sectors. I publish weekly on LinkedIn and monthly in Connect Puerto Rico. Follow Connect Puerto Rico

🧐 Who’s Behind Connect Puerto Rico? 🧐

I’m Jillian, a journalist, editor, and founder of Connect Puerto Rico.

I created it to track the people, policies, and projects shaping Puerto Rico’s energy development — and to connect big decisions made elsewhere to what they mean across the archipelago.

Because at stake is whether that development is reliable, accountable, and built to serve Puerto Ricans.

Learn more about Connect Puerto Rico