San Juan, Puerto Rico – A massive power outage affected nearly all of Puerto Rico early Tuesday as the US territory prepared to celebrate New Year’s Eve. More than 1.2 million of 1.47 million customers were without power, according to Luma Energy, a private company that oversees electricity transmission and distribution on the island.
It was not immediately clear what caused the widespread blackout or when power would be restored. Luma officials did not immediately return a message for comment.
In a post on X, Luma said it was in contact with teams and companies that oversee power generation in Puerto Rico to resolve the outage. He said he would provide details as soon as possible.
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A spokesman for Genera PR, which oversees the power generation, could not immediately be reached.
The governor of Puerto Rico, Pedro Pierluisi, said in a post on social networks that his administration was communicating with both LUMA and Genera “about the massive blackout affecting much of the Island due to a critical fault.”
He said that work is being done to restore the electricity supply and that the Government “asked for answers and solutions from both LUMA and Genera, which must speed up the restart of the generating units outside the fault zone and maintain the population duly informed of the measures they are taking”. restore service to the entire island.”
Speaking to the Telemundo network Monday afternoon, however, Josué Colón, head of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, he said it might take a few days fully restore the service.
Puerto Rico continues to struggle with chronic power outages blamed on a collapsing power grid devastated by Hurricane Mariaa powerful Category 4 storm that hit the island in September 2017. The system was already in decline before the storm due to years of lack of maintenance and investment.