Puerto Rico is no stranger to power outages, but the one that hit on Tuesday was another massive blow. Nearly 1.3 million homes and businesses, that’s basically the entire island, were left in the dark after a serious infrastructure problem at a power plant on the southern coast. It started early, around 5:30 a.m., and energy company Luma quickly updated the public via X (formerly Twitter) about the situation.
Puerto Rico still dealing with massive power outage
Frustration was at an all-time high. Miosotis Corretjer, a San Juan local, shared her frustration, saying it was “totally frustrating” and slamming the government for its lack of action. “The people say that we don’t want Luma because it’s the worst service of electricity that we have in the history of our country,” she added. She even mentioned how it was ruining their holiday traditions—especially hitting them hard during Navidad, the time when families are supposed to come together and celebrate.
But by Tuesday evening, Luma started to turn things around. They managed to get power back to over 700,000 customers, which is a huge chunk of the affected population. Hospitals like Naguabo were re-energized, and other critical infrastructure like water facilities were back online too. Still, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. Power was being restored in phases, and Luma said it could take between 24 to 48 hours to get things fully back on track.
According to Josué Colón, director of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, the issue started with a problem on the southern power line that set off a chain reaction, causing several plants to fail. It wasn’t going to be a quick fix, and Colón admitted it would take most of the day to get everything sorted.
Governor Pedro Pierluisi wasn’t sitting back either. He tweeted that he was in contact with both Luma and Genera PR, pushing for answers and demanding they speed up the process of restoring power, especially for the folks who were still in the dark. His incoming successor, Jenniffer González, was just as outspoken. She said Puerto Rico could no longer rely on an energy system that constantly lets its people down. She promised to prioritize stabilizing the island’s electrical grid.
Local airport operated with backup generators
Even the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport was feeling the impact, though it worked on backup generators to keep flights running without disruption. The thing is, Puerto Rico’s electrical issues are long-standing. The grid was already struggling before Hurricane Maria wiped it out back in 2017. Since then, it’s been a patchwork job to fix it, with power outages becoming a regular occurrence.
In 2020, the government brought in Luma, a partnership between Canada’s Atco and Houston’s Quanta Services, to manage the island’s electrical grid. Since then, it’s been a rollercoaster. They’ve made some progress, like cutting outage frequency by 30% last year, but it’s still not enough. The outages are still too frequent, and many Puerto Ricans feel like they’re stuck in an endless loop of frustration.
Protests erupted following 2022 blackouts
Things came to a head in 2022 when protests erupted over yet another round of blackouts. The protests were so intense that San Juan’s mayor declared a state of emergency. And then New York’s Attorney General, Letitia James, called for a federal investigation into Luma. Five years after Hurricane Maria, billions in federal dollars had been spent to rebuild the grid, but residents were still dealing with constant outages and high electricity rates.
The island’s electric grid is ancient. Many of its power stations are around 45 years old, double the age of facilities on the mainland. They’re also heavily reliant on fossil fuels, making it an inefficient and costly system to maintain. Luma has been working on modernizing the grid. But it’s clear there’s a long way to go before Puerto Ricans get a reliable, sustainable energy system they can actually count on.
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