A fresh wave of frustration swept through Puerto Rico this morning as a catastrophic power outage left nearly 1.3 million users—88% of the island—literally in the dark. The blackout, which began at 5:30 a.m. on New Year’s Eve, has once again thrown a spotlight on Puerto Rico’s crumbling energy infrastructure.
LUMA Energy, the private company managing transmission and distribution, and Genera PR, responsible for generation, scrambled to address the outage. According to Gov. Pedro Pierluisi, restoration efforts are focused on the San Juan and Palo Seco plants, with full power expected to return within two days. “We are demanding answers and solutions,” Pierluisi stated, echoing the collective frustration of Puerto Ricans long weary of rolling blackouts and delayed modernization projects.
Puerto Rico’s power grid has been on life support for years, battered by hurricanes and marred by mismanagement. The collapse of the grid following Hurricane Maria in 2017 remains a grim benchmark, with many residents enduring months without electricity. Despite $9.9 billion in FEMA funds and a handoff from the government-owned PREPA to private operators in recent years, outages persist, and resilience remains a distant dream.
This morning’s blackout is only the latest chapter in a saga of unreliability. With millions of dollars poured into recovery and modernization, Puerto Ricans are left wondering: how much longer can this patchwork system hold before the lights go out for good?
For now, the countdown to the New Year begins in darkness, with candles lit not in celebration but in necessity.
