Puerto Rico is experiencing a widespread power outage on New Year’s Eve after the power grid collapsed, affecting nearly the entire island.
Nearly 1.3 million people are without power on the island.
Luma Energy, the private energy company primarily supplying power to the island, reported as of 10.45am ET that only 13.5% of the US territory’s customers had power. In a statement, the company estimated it may take between 24 and 48 hours to restore power.
Puerto Rico’s governor, Pedro Pierluisi, posted on X that his office was in contact with Luma and “demanding answers and solutions” from the company. Luma said in a statement it believed “a failure in an underground line” was responsible for the outage.
There was another blackout in June affecting about 350,000 customers on the island. The New Year’s Eve outage appears to be significantly bigger than the previous blackout.
Blackouts have been a recurring problem for Puerto Rico since 2017 when Hurricane Maria severely damaged the island. The hurricane took out the publicly owned electric grid, known as Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority or Prepa. The following year, the island’s then governor announced the selling of Prepa and privatized the electric distribution network.
Due to the 2017 hurricane and subsequent blackouts, many people in Puerto Rico rely on backup generators. Puerto Rico’s main airport announced flights would not be interrupted and operations were running normally, thanks to the electric generators.
The incoming governor, Jenniffer González-Colón, who is set to be sworn in on 2 January, plans to name an “energy czar” to review the contract with Luma and search for another power grid operator, per the Associated Press.
