Residential and business customers in Santa Isabel, Coamo and Aibonito will experience a significant improvement on their electric service after successfully completing work on transmission line 200, benefiting more than 24,000 customers in the southern area.
This work aims to strengthen and rebuild line 200 that had been out of service since Hurricane Maria in 2017. As part of the rebuild, LUMA teams installed 54 70-ft structures with 13-ft-deep bases that offer greater resilience and reliability to the system and over 50,000 ft of cables were installed in the section of the line that runs along the PR-1 highway between Salinas and Santa Isabel.
"We are very happy to successfully complete work on this line part of LUMA’s efforts to rebuild the electrical grid to improve reliability and resilience.” This line has been out of service for seven years as a result of Hurricane Maria’s passing and now, we have an additional connection option to offer redundancy and a more reliable service for customers in the area," said engineer Hendzon Martínez, director of transmission lines at LUMA.
The engineer explained that before repairing the 38kv line, service could only be offered through transmission line 4800 that runs directly from Cayey, which limited the options to provide service to customers in Aibonito, Coamo and Santa Isabel.
This project required an investment of about $1.6 million that was paid for with LUMA's operating budget and required coordination with state and federal agencies to ensure the preservation of historic landmarks and wildlife in the area. Also, LUMA continues to work in coordination with FEMA on the project of total reconstruction of lines 100 and 200 from Jobos TC in Guayama to Ponce.
"We continue to strengthen and rebuild the electric grid so that the Puerto Rican people have a strong and resilient system," said Martinez, who has more than 20 years of experience working on the electric system.
Transformer Update
On the other hand, the Director of lines of the Central and Southern Division of LUMA, Alejandro González, reported that early Saturday morning the transformer was successfully moved from Maunabo to Santa Isabel and said that if there are no setbacks, it is expected to be operational by the middle of next month. According to Gonzalez, LUMA will continue working with a sense of urgency to complete the work related to the transformer and continue improving service in these southern towns.
