**Title**: Energy in the North - Sheila Bengochea
**Date**: June 18, 2025
**Participants**: Amanda Byrd, Sheila Bengochea


00;00;00;12 - 00;00;11;16 [Sheila Bengochea] After the Hurricane Maria, our electric grid went down. We were without power for a long, long time.

00;00;11;16 - 00;00;30;19 [Amanda Byrd] This week on energy in the North, I speak with Sheila Bengochea, the supervisor of the energy efficiency program at Luma Energy in Puerto Rico. In 2017, Hurricane Maria devastated the island, knocking out power for many residents for almost a year. I met Sheila when she was in ÐÓ°Épro for the Energy Leadership Accelerator. I began by asking about some of the challenges a Puerto Rico still faces in Puerto Rico. 

00;00;30;19 - 00;00;56;19 [Sheila Bengochea] Our system is very fragile and we are lacking of generation, so our programs help to maintain the grid stability, and that's something that the people may not know. And we are helping the people to know that information, empowering them to buy these efficiency products that will help them also lower their their bills and also will help the grid and the environment.

00;00;56;19 - 00;00;59;29 [Amanda Byrd] You said that you have a generation, maybe, shortage. 


00;00;59;29 - 00;01;22;03 [Sheila Bengochea] Yeah. Yeah. We have are facing that, situation right now after the Hurricane Maria. Our electric grid went down. We were without power for a long, long time. Some people, wait, like, one year to have power again in their homes. Actually, my mom, the hurricane hit us on September. My mom got, in power on December. But I have other family that live in rural or places that, they won without power. So it was a very difficult time for for the island. And we are still having problems. We'll still having these generation issues that are getting worse. And that's something that is happening right now. And this summer we are expecting a lot of generation problems. But the government is working to, to do some investment in, in repairing and renovating our plant because our plants are too old. And actually, Luma is in charge of the distribution and transmission of the island. And we have an another private company that is in charge of the generation of, of the system in Puerto Rico. One of the thing is the program that I, that I work, that's one of the things that is addressing, to lower the, the consumption of the customers so they will relieve some stress of the, integrate, try to prevent outages so that a lot of people. 

00;01;22;03 - 00;02;31;15 [Amanda Byrd] How do you generate power in Puerto Rico? 

00;02;31;15 - 00;02;54;11 [Sheila Bengochea] We have, five plants, the diesel. We have a lot of people that have the solar system in their homes. We have more than 150,000 houses that have their solar system in their houses. So they have prepared. And we reside resilient because, we have these issues and with these natural disasters so that people have prepared themselves to, to be able to have the energy in, in their, in their houses.

00;02;59;08 - 00;03;10;11 [Amanda Byrd] Are there any plans to put any community scale renewables? 


00;03;10;11 - 00;03;29;11 [Sheila Bengochea] I know that some communities have are starting to do that microgrids. An example that is one community that is Castañer. This community, is installing their own microgrid so they can have power for their, their hospital, you know, the critical places and the community can have, power in case that they don't rely in the operator.
And they are doing that and also another, community that is called Las Margaritas. They also, have already have their, microgrid in the island. I think they won a prize for their, their community for installing and that microgrid in their community. 

00;03;51;21 - 00;04;00;05 [Amanda Byrd] Sheila Bengochea is a supervisor of the energy efficiency program at Luma Energy in Puerto Rico, and I'm Amanda Byrd, chief storyteller for the ÐÓ°Épro Center for Energy and Power. Find this story and more at uaf.edu/acep