Regulatory Support for Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico Energy Bureau
Regulatory Assistance Project
Project ongoing.

Synapse has been engaged with the Puerto Rico Energy Commission, now named the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau, since 2015. Our role includes providing technical support and expert review of materials submitted by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA, the island's sole electric utility) and by its operating contractors LUMA (transmission, distribution, and system operations) and Genera (legacy generation). 

In early 2015, Synapse was engaged by the Regulatory Assistance Program (RAP) to help develop Puerto Rico's first Integrated Resource Planning (IRP) rules. The rule was successfully promulgated in May 2015. Subsequently, Synapse collaborated with RAP to assess PREPA's first IRP and lead a commission investigation into the development and finalization of the IRP. Over the course of 2015 and into early 2016, Synapse led an increasingly intensive review of the IRP process and findings, as well as the Commission’s first public hearing. The IRP Final Order, largely a result of Synapse's work, was published September 2016. We led a similar process on behalf of the Energy Bureau for PREPA’s second IRP in 2019-20, developed in the wake of Hurricanes Irma and Maria and the island’s commitment to 100 percent renewable electricity by 2050, and are again leading the review process for the ongoing third IRP.

We have also assisted the Bureau in crafting rules for microgrids and developing performance metrics and incentives. As part of this ongoing work, Synapse developed a quarterly-updated dashboard to track key performance metrics related to Puerto Rico’s electric system. We also provided extensive support for the Energy Bureau in its docket establishing performance metrics for LUMA and their relationship to the operator’s compensation; our support in this area is ongoing.

Synapse assisted the Energy Bureau in writing and adopting regulations for energy efficiency and demand response. These regulations have resulted in the launch of Puerto Rico’s first ever ratepayer-funded EE and DR programs. The Customer Battery Energy Sharing (CBES) demand response program is harnessing tens of MW of capacity from tens of thousands of distributed batteries as a virtual power plant to reduce evening peak loads and prevent or shorten rolling power outages.