In 1915 the street lighting was launched in our capital city with the installation of eight spotlights and 600 incandescent lamps on the occasion of a royal visit to the Island
In 1893 the first system of private lighting was installed by Don José Ramón Figueroa in Villalba. Since then, until the inauguration of the Carite Power Plant 1 in 1915, all the electricity available in Puerto Rico was produced and distributed by private companies established in the most important urban centers of the Island. That same year, the public lighting in our capital city began with the installation of eight spotlights and 600 incandescent lamps on occasion of a royal visit to the Island. The "Sociedad Anónima de la Luz Eléctrica" offered this service in San Juan for several years. Mayagüez was the second municipality to install 116 arc lamps for street lighting. These small 120-volt generators were the first to be coupled to a hydraulic turbine for producing electricity in Puerto Rico. They were installed in 1897 by Casellas y Cía. in the town of Utuado to provide lighting service to the public square and some houses in the town. In 1908, the South Coast Irrigation Service was created by law. They had the task of developing the systems to provide this area with the water necessary to achieve the maximum exploitation of its agricultural potential. We owe this small agency the development of the public electricity service, which emerged as a byproduct of the development of the irrigation service.
AUTHORITY OF THE FLUVIAL SOURCES
The explosive growth in the demand for electric power imposed the creation of a new independent government agency. This agency should have enough freedom and flexibility to provide the necessary financing to expand the generation system and power lines. This is how the first public corporation of Puerto Rico was born, THE AUTHORITY OF THE FLUVIAL SOURCES, created by virtue of Law Number 83, of May 2, 1941. In 1945, at the end of the war, the Fluvial Sources Authority purchased the Puerto Rico Railway Light and Power Company and the Mayagüez Light Power and Ice Company. This was achieved with part of the proceeds from the first issue of public income bonds made by this corporation, under the visionary direction of Mr. Antonio Lucchetti. This way, the main electricity systems that operated on the Island were consolidated into a single company. The Sea Power was a 30,000-kilowatt floating plant, that was acquired in 1946 to solve the problem of deficiency in generation that occurred as a consequence of the increasing demand for electric power. By that time it was evident that the exploitation of our hydroelectric resources had reached their maximum capacity. The Sea Power was installed from the dock in Puerto Nuevo to the then Monacillos substation, through one of the first lines of 115,000 volts built.
On May 30, 1979, through Law no. 57, the Fluvial Sources Authority changed its name to the PUERTO RICO ELECTRIC POWER AUTHORITY. The change was due to the new circumstances, in which, already the fluvial sources did not constitute the main energetic source to supply electricity for Puerto Rico.