After a blackout that plunged the vast majority of Puerto Rico into darkness on New Year's Eve, power was restored to 98% on the island. The service also enabled the commissioning of water plants and wastewater infrastructure.
Power resumed Wednesday to nearly all customers in Puerto Rico after a widespread blackout plunged the island into darkness on New Year's Eve.
By the afternoon, power had been restored to 98% of Puerto Rico's 1.47 million electric service customers, reported Luma Energy, the private company that oversees power transmission and distribution in the archipelago.
Power returned to homes, as well as hospitals, water plants and wastewater infrastructure in this US territory after the massive blackout that exposed persistent electrical problems plaguing the island.
However, the company warned that customers could still experience temporary outages in the coming days. He indicated that the complete resumption of service in Puerto Rico could take up to two days.
“We will need to manage the load as generation is available. This will likely require system-wide load relay management,” Juan Saca, president of Luma Energy, stated in a statement.
The supply was interrupted at 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday, darkening almost the entire archipelago as people prepared to celebrate the New Year. Authorities are still investigating the cause of the blackout, but Luma Energy said a preliminary review pointed to a fault in an underground power line in the south of the territory.
Governor-elect Jenniffer González Colón, who will take office on Thursday, warned that customers could experience disruptions in the coming days as power plants are not yet operating at full capacity.
“These days, I urge you to be restrained with your energy consumption to help reduce load shifts, so that a greater number of people can have electricity available, and so that the system can start up (start) without major setbacks,” he said. González Colón in the social network X.
In the election campaign, González Colón had promised to appoint an “energy czar” to oversee the operation of the electrical grid, which has long suffered from fragility and failures due to years of neglect.
The island's power grid was devastated in September 2017 by Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm.
Unreliable electricity supply is still very common, hindering the daily lives of Puerto Ricans and causing frustration. In June, more than 340,000 customers lost power as people suffered due to high temperatures. At the height of Hurricane Ernesto in August, more than half of all customers experienced a power outage. Tens of thousands of people remained without power a week after the storm.
The New Year's Eve blackout occurred as customers prepare for a rate increase. Last month, the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau approved an increase of 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour for residential customers from January to March, which will cause the average home's electric bills to increase by almost $20, according to that body.