For the second time this year, many Puerto Ricans find themselves without electricity as a major blackout plunges the island into darkness and chaos. With danger and inconvenience spread across the island ahead of Easter weekend, many Puerto Ricans are again demanding answers from government officials and electricity providers.
‘Unacceptable’ failure of the island’s power grid
USA Today reported that the latest large-scale blackout began Wednesday afternoon, impacting 1.4 million customers of the primary power grid on the island of 3.2 million people. Although the exact cause of the outage remains unknown, it appears to have happened due to an unexpected shutdown of all the island’s power-generating plants and a failure of the system that transmits electricity throughout the island; Gov. Jenniffer González-Colón called the transmission issue “unacceptable.” Although over 600,000 customers had their power restored by Thursday morning, estimates state that it may take 48 to 72 hours to get electricity back for 90% of customers.
Homes, businesses, hospitals and more impacted
Although over 100,000 residences and businesses use solar energy, over 40% of Puerto Ricans live below the poverty line, with many of them unable to afford generators or solar panels, according to CNN. The power outage, happening days before Easter weekend on the predominantly Catholic island, has caused problems for residents, especially those who don’t own private generators. Travelers to the island are also impacted, with hotels nearly at capacity ahead of the holiday. Businesses were closed, and major sporting events were canceled due to a lack of power. Tens of thousands of people were also left without water due to the blackout. The outage also impacted several hospitals and the island’s largest airport.
Latest failure adds to the island’s power woes
This week’s blackout is the second major power failure to hit Puerto Rico in recent months and one of many major disruptions over the last several years. An already-aging power grid was heavily damaged by 2017’s Hurricane Maria, which left many residents without electricity for months. The island’s power grid was recently privatized, with Genera PR chosen as the company to generate electricity for the island and Luma Energy tasked with distributing electricity throughout Puerto Rico. However, many residents have not seen any improvement since these private companies took over. Hundreds of thousands of people were left without power during blackouts in the summer of 2024, and over 1 million people lost electricity in a major power failure that began on New Year’s Eve and lasted into 2025.
With yet another major holiday impacted by a massive power failure, people across Puerto Rico are scrambling to cope as workers restore electricity. But this latest failure will only add to the growing calls for significant reforms to Puerto Rico’s energy infrastructure.
