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Puerto Rico Restores Power to Nearly All Customers After Island-Wide Blackout

The outage, caused by a sudden shutdown of all generating plants, left 1.4 million customers without power and sparked calls for accountability from private operators.

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Jenniffer González, the Governor of Puerto Rico

Overview

  • An estimated 98.8% of customers have had power restored as of early April 18, meeting the projected 48–72-hour restoration timeline.
  • The blackout, which began on April 16, disrupted critical services, including hospitals, the main airport, and water systems, affecting over 400,000 customers' water access.
  • Officials cited a combination of factors, including a failure in the protection system and vegetation on transmission lines, as potential triggers for the outage.
  • The incident has intensified public and political pressure to review or terminate contracts with private operators Luma Energy and Genera PR, amid longstanding frustrations over grid reliability.
  • Governor Jenniffer González has pledged a preliminary report on the outage within three days and emphasized the urgent need for systemic energy infrastructure improvements.