Power has been restored to nearly all affected customers in Puerto Rico after a massive blackout that plunged many parts of the island into darkness during New Year celebrations.
LUMA Energy, the Canadian-American company responsible for Puerto Rico’s power grid, announced that approximately 1.4 million users—98% of the total—had regained service by Wednesday morning.
The outage, which began in the early hours of New Year’s Eve, underscored longstanding issues with the island’s fragile power grid.
While the root cause remains under investigation, LUMA indicated that the initial disruption appeared to stem from an underground line. Broader structural challenges with Puerto Rico’s generation and distribution systems were also cited as contributing factors.
Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Pierluisi acknowledged the challenges in a statement on Wednesday, saying he had spoken with President Joe Biden and Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, who reiterated the federal government’s “commitment to assist Puerto Rico in continuing and speeding up the reconstruction of the electric system.”
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Governor-elect Jenniffer González-Colón, set to take office on Thursday, pledged to coordinate closely with energy and security officials.
“I am in communication with my energy and security team to ensure power restoration is carried out in a coordinated, safe manner and with a sense of urgency,” she stated.
The blackout marks another chapter in Puerto Rico’s troubled history with power outages. Josue Colon, CEO of the Puerto Rico Power Authority (PREPA), explained that a breakdown in the transmission and distribution system triggered a cascading failure. PREPA, a government-owned corporation overseeing the island’s electricity infrastructure, contracted LUMA to manage the grid in 2021 and Genera to handle energy production in 2023.
This recent outage follows a string of significant failures, including widespread blackouts after Hurricane Maria in 2017, which left residents without power for months.
More recently, Hurricane Ernesto in 2024 caused disruptions that affected about half the island’s electric customers, according to LUMA Energy.
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