A critical failure in Puerto Rico’s power grid has caused a massive blackout, plunging nearly 1.3 million users—about 88% of customers—into darkness on New Year’s Eve, according to LUMA Energy, the Canadian-American company managing the island’s power distribution and transmission.
Governor Pedro Pierluisi confirmed the outage on his X account and stated that efforts to restore power were underway at the San Juan and Palo Seco plants.
“We are demanding answers and solutions from both LUMA and Genera. They must expedite the restart of generating units outside the fault area and keep the people informed about measures to restore service across the island,” Pierluisi added.
The blackout began early Tuesday morning at 5:30 a.m. and has left intersections without functioning traffic lights and residents struggling without electricity. LUMA Energy’s Emergency Operations Center, in collaboration with Genera and other power entities, is working to restore power as quickly as possible. The process is expected to take one to two days, the company said on its X account.
This latest outage highlights Puerto Rico’s ongoing struggles with an unreliable and poorly maintained power grid. For decades, modernization efforts have been sluggish, first under a publicly-owned entity and now under private management.
The collapse of the grid in 2017 after Hurricane Maria left hundreds of thousands without power for months, marking the largest blackout in U.S. history in terms of lost hours of electricity.
In response to Hurricane Maria, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) allocated $9.9 billion for permanent repairs to the grid. In 2021, LUMA Energy assumed control from the government-owned Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA). Genera PR, responsible for energy production, began operations in 2023.
Despite these measures, challenges persist. After Hurricane Ernesto in August, about half of all electric customers on the island experienced outages, underscoring the fragility of Puerto Rico’s energy infrastructure.
The current outage serves as a stark reminder of the pressing need for reliable and sustainable energy solutions for Puerto Rico.
