IEEE PES
Shay Bahramirad is the Senior Vice President of Engineering and Asset Management at LUMA Energy, the power company responsible for electric service in Puerto Rico.
The 2023 Conference on Innovative Smart Grid Technologies - Latin America, sponsored by IEEE Power & Energy Society, focused on the theme of disaster recovery and network transformation in times of climate change. PUF spoke with two of the conference participants: Shay Bahramirad, senior vice president for engineering and asset management at LUMA Energy, Puerto Rico's power company; and Tom Dunn, CEO of Vermont Electric Power Company.
PUF's Steve Mitnick: What do you do and what is LUMA?
Shay Bahramirad: LUMA Energy assumed operation of the transmission and distribution grid in Puerto Rico in June 2021. We inherited a system that was neglected and broken for decades, and after several disasters, like Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Irma, earthquakes, and numerous tropical storms, the reliability of the system was a few hundred percent worse than the worst utility in the continental United States.
The system today has fundamental flaws, and we have to construct and build it in such a way that it would be aligned with modern standards and public policy. For example, on public policy, the people of Puerto Rico have decided they want a hundred percent renewable energy by 2050.