By The Star Staff
Genera PR, the private operator of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s (PREPA) legacy plants, urged the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau (PREB) on Wednesday to approve its request to decommission the Vega Baja plant, which has been pending since August, so it can start demolition.
The private operator submitted a letter from LUMA Energy supporting the expedited retirement of the combustion engines at Vega Baja, noting that it has long considered the units to be unavailable.
Genera PR, which in January 2023 signed on to operate the PREPA plants, had begun the process of decommissioning the Vega Baja plant earlier this year but asked the island’s energy regulator to keep the draft plan to decommission the units under wraps, arguing that it may lead to misunderstandings and qualifies as a trade secret.
The private operator said the draft plan presented on April 17, contains sensitive information that is ““inherently dynamic and provisional.”
“As a work in progress, the draft decommissioning plan reflects current strategies and plans contingent upon further evaluation and modification by the Energy Bureau. Such changes could significantly alter its content and directives,” Genera PR said in a request to the PREB dated April 24. “Public disclosure at this stage could lead to misunderstandings and misrepresentations about the intent of the decommissioning strategy, underscoring the need for confidentiality.”
Further compounding the need for confidentiality, Genera PR said, the draft decommissioning plan includes details critical to developing an ongoing public procurement process still under consideration by the PREB.
“Such fluidity necessitates that the plan remains confidential in accordance with Article 4.2 of Regulation 8815,” Genera said. “Disclosing the information contained in the draft decommissioning plan at this juncture would not only contravene Regulation 8815 but also threaten the transparency of the ongoing procurement process, thereby undermining Genera’s position as the issuing authority.”
The draft plan, which is part of the procedure Generan must follow in decommissioning power plants, outlines how Genera intends to approach, execute, record and complete the decommissioning services, including the permitting, demolition, decontamination, waste disposal and dismantling in preparation to host new battery energy storage units.
In parallel, Genera said it had published a request for proposals for the demolition of the plant.
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