Puerto Rico Grapples Hit with Second Island-Wide Blackout in Four Months

San Juan, Puerto Rico — April 19, 2025 — Puerto Rico faced yet another island-wide blackout this week, plunging over 1.4 million customers into darkness and disrupting daily life across the U.S. territory. The massive outage, which began on Wednesday, April 16, 2025, marked the second such incident in less than four months, reigniting concerns about the fragility of the island’s aging power grid. By early Friday, April 18, power was restored to 98.8% of customers, according to LUMA Energy, the private company responsible for power transmission and distribution. However, the incident has sparked widespread frustration, calls for accountability, and renewed scrutiny of Puerto Rico’s energy infrastructure.

The blackout struck at approximately 12:40 p.m. on Wednesday, April 16, when a failure in the transmission system caused all power-generation facilities across the island to unexpectedly shut down. LUMA Energy identified a combination of factors, including a "failure in the protection system as initial trigger" and overgrown vegetation on a transmission line between Campaleche and Manatí along the northern coast, as likely contributors to the outage. Josué Colón, Puerto Rico’s energy chief and former executive director of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, noted that all generators entered protective mode after the transmission failure, when only one should have shut down, exacerbating the crisis.

The outage affected more than 1.4 million customers, leaving over 400,000 without water and causing significant disruptions. Hospitals and Puerto Rico’s main international airport switched to backup generators, while passengers on a rapid transit train in San Juan were evacuated by walking along an overpass next to the tracks. Traffic snarled, businesses closed, and residents scrambled for ice, candles, and fuel for generators. Nurys Perez, a beauty salon owner in San Juan, was forced to move a generator into place to keep her business running, a scene repeated across the island as shops and restaurants relied on backup power.

By Thursday, April 17, LUMA Energy reported that 57.5% of customers—approximately 843,800—had regained power, with estimates suggesting it could take 48 to 72 hours to restore service to 90% of clients. Crews worked around the clock, and by early Friday, April 18, power was restored to 98.8% of customers, a significant milestone in the recovery effort. However, LUMA warned that "some customers may continue to experience temporary outages due to limited generation," and Governor Jenniffer González clarified that the 21,400 customers still without power on Friday were affected by unrelated issues.

The rapid restoration was a marked improvement over previous outages, such as the New Year’s Eve blackout in December 2024, which left the island in darkness for two days. Still, the recurring nature of these incidents underscored the ongoing vulnerabilities in Puerto Rico’s power infrastructure, which has struggled to recover fully since Hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated the grid in 2017.

Authorities are still investigating the precise cause of the blackout, with preliminary findings expected to take at least three days. Governor González, who cut short a weeklong vacation to return to Puerto Rico on Wednesday evening, described the island’s electrical equipment as "old and fragile," questioning whether the system could handle increased demand during holidays like Holy Week, when many residents are on vacation. Another theory under consideration is whether a series of breakers failed to open or exploded, or if overgrown vegetation interfered with the grid—a preventable issue that Colón emphasized should not have occurred.

Speculation about a solar storm’s role surfaced due to a massive solar event coinciding with the blackout. However, there is currently no evidence linking geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) to the outage, and LUMA Energy is investigating whether such factors played a role.

The blackout, occurring just before Easter weekend, disrupted holiday preparations and strained businesses, particularly in the tourism sector. Hotels filled with Easter vacationers, hospitals, and the main international airport were among the critical facilities impacted. Ramón C. Barquín III, president of the United Retail Center, a nonprofit representing small- and medium-sized businesses, warned that repeated outages could deter investors at a time when Puerto Rico urgently needs economic development. “We cannot continue to repeat this cycle of blackouts without taking concrete measures to strengthen our energy infrastructure,” he said.

This week’s blackout is the latest in a series of significant outages since Hurricane Maria in 2017, which caused the largest blackout in U.S. history and left some residents without power for nearly a year. The island’s power grid, already battered by hurricanes and financial crises, has faced chronic challenges, including regular rolling blackouts and inadequate maintenance. The New Year’s Eve blackout in 2024, caused by an underground power line failure, further highlighted the system’s fragility.

On April 15, just one day before the blackout, Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Darren Soto, and Pablo Jose Hernandez sent a letter to Energy Secretary Chris Wright, warning of an “imminent grid reliability crisis” in Puerto Rico. The letter underscored the urgency of addressing the island’s energy challenges, a concern now amplified by this latest outage.

17GEN4.com