Stakeholder perspectives on increasing electric power infrastructure integrity

Abstract

This paper presents results from ten stakeholder engagement activities held in Puerto Rico after hurricane María in 2017. This was part of an NSF-funded project to identify, refine, and examine five visions for redeveloping and enhancing the local electric infrastructure in Puerto Rico. The results from the project will be shared with local decision-makers to inform energy policy directions. The ten group activities were divided in two rounds. The first round consisted of six different focus groups: Four groups had mainly technical background while the other two were community focus groups. Questions in this first round were related to participant's perceptions on what failed, and on recommendations on changes to make the electric infrastructure more resilient. The results of the first phase were used to guide some of the assumptions used in the modeling and simulation of the five proposed visions. In the mid-point of the project, stakeholders were again engaged to provide feedback on initial results and to fine-tune the project's simulations and analysis. The participants without power background were more positive about new ideas, although in general, these were for a different kind of approach to build and manage the local electric infrastructure. As the number of years of experience in the power industry increased, so did resistance to new ideas for the power grid. Further discussion of the results from all ten group activities is presented in the paper.