Here’s a brief overview of what happened in July in Puerto Rico. We send out a monthly update that is much more detailed to all our members. If you’d like to stay up to date, get a run-down on what’s happened in the news and on the PR Energy Bureau’s docket each month, subscribe by becoming a member. In our newsletter, we also share links to watch or listen to all our monthly episodes.

If you’re just tuning in to the latest in energy news for last month, July, be prepared for an overwhelming array of headlines. Hint: none of them bode well for Puerto Rico, the island’s economic trajectory, or its ability to escape the vicious maelstrom seemingly of its own making. Puerto Rico is in desperate need of a win and July highlighted precisely why some basic advances are so hard for the island to come by.

The Fiscal Oversight and Management Board (FOMB) paused for review a noncompetitive contract the government had signed with New Fortress Energy (NFE) for $15 billion. NFE, citing some $9 million worth of missed payments since 2020, pulled their floating gas storage away from Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico engaged in a strictly uncompetitive process to procure 800 MW of emergency power, ultimately courting previously non-existent Power Expectations. Simultaneously, LUMA submitted initial reports in the new base rate case, showing the costs to operate the system likely need to go up some 11¢/kwh. This was met with predicted hysteria and increased calls for LUMA’s contract to be canceled, including by Gov. González-Colón and her administration’s Energy Czar, former PREPA lead, Josué Colón.

Sunnova, the owner of over 70% of the residential solar systems in Puerto Rico declared bankruptcy and left in limbo a vast number of solar customers. The FOMB made the case for its existence in front of the US Congress, and the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) makes significant changes to the national energy landscape. Puerto Rico in late July experienced a water shortage that saw the governor call in the national guard to supportwater distribution, and the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau (PREB) has issued a confusing rate decrease, followed by a rate increase.

To say that energy in Puerto Rico is a mess is to understate the challenge. We’re trying to keep up with it all and publish articles, analysis, and conversations about the most important goings-on each month. Follow our LinkedIn page for regular thought pieces on what’s happening in Puerto Rico energy.

Also at the PR Energy Forum, we spoke to Jesús Cintrón, Federal Project Manager at Genera PR, about the opportunity to deploy 1.72GW of energy storage to support grid operations, offering a unique bright spot. And we talked with Jesús Núñez, CEO of the Nuclear Alternative Project (NAP) who unpacked the nuclear opportunity for the island. All in all, there is opportunity for the taking, but Puerto Rico continues to show it’s not ready for serious energy progress. To understand how energy plays into the island’s trajectory, we spoke with John Bozek, Chief Strategy & Research Officer at Invest Puerto Rico, and discussed energy as an economic development strategy and where Puerto Rico goes from here. You can watch or listen to that episode now on YouTube and Spotify.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX5gClUxLx4&list=PLvOGRK4h7xHXWAsGn93KCo 1yMlcFUwHSL&index=3

https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/puerto-rico-energy-forum/episodes/Puerto-Ric o-Energy-Forum-July-2025-w–John-Bozek-e36b7jf/a-ac352ri

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