Estimates of the Economic Impacts of Long-Duration, Widespread Power Disruptions in Puerto Rico

Technical Report · Mon Mar 31 04:00:00 EDT 2025

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/2544253· OSTI ID:2544253

Baik, Sunhee ^[1]; LaCommare, Kristina S. H. ^[1]; Larsen, Peter H. ^[1]; Geraci, Gabby ^[2]; Johnson, Karen ^[2]

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1. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
2. Institute for Building Technology and Safety, Ashburn, VA (United States)

A typical electricity customer in Puerto Rico experienced nearly 27 hours of power interruptions in 2023–with many customers experiencing extremely long duration outages during a single event (i.e., greater than one month). This project involved conducting state-of-the-art surveying to assess the direct costs of power outages occurring across Puerto Rico, developing customer-specific models to estimate future costs over varying outage durations, and comparing these estimates to FEMA’s Value of Unit Service for Electricity. We estimate that a territory-wide power outage may cost customers $$\$$1$$, $$\$$5$$ and $$\$$29$ billion during one-, 14-, and 30-day interruptions, respectively. However, these are lower-bound estimates because our study focused on direct economic costs and, by necessity, did not fully incorporate (1) indirect impacts to the economy; (2) costs to repair or replace damaged utility infrastructure; and (3) the broader societal consequences including increased morbidity- and mortality-related costs. The information contained in this study can be used to estimate the direct economic value of past or proposed investments in power system resilience. We conclude with a discussion of this study’s limitations and suggest additional research to improve stakeholder understanding of the impacts of power outages across Puerto Rico.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Federal Energy Management Programs (FEMP)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-05CH11231
• OSTI ID: 2544253
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY