San Juan, Puerto Rico – A major power outage hit nearly all of Puerto Rico early Tuesday as the US territory prepares to celebrate New Year’s Eve. More than 1.2 million of the 1.47 million customers were without power, according to Luma Energy, the private company that oversees the island’s electricity transmission and distribution.
It is not clear what caused the widespread power outages or when power will be restored. Luma officials did not immediately return a message for comment.
In a post written on X, Luma said he has been communicating with workers and companies responsible for power generation in Puerto Rico to resolve the problem. It said it would provide details as soon as possible.
RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP/Getty
A spokesperson for Genera PR, which oversees the power generation, could not be reached for comment.
The governor of Puerto Rico, Pedro Pierluisi, in a statement posted on social media, said his administration is contacting LUMA and Genera “about the power outage affecting a large part of the island due to a major fault.”
He said that the work to restore the electricity supply is ongoing and that the government is “looking for answers and solutions from LUMA and Genera, which must speed up the resumption of power generating units outside the faulted area and properly inform the people of the measures they are taking. to restore service to the entire island.”
Speaking to the Telemundo network late Monday, however, Josué Colón, head of Puerto Rico’s electricity authority, said it could take several days to fully restore service.
Puerto Rico continues to struggle with intermittent power outages blamed on the breakdown of the power grid destroyed by Hurricane Mariaa powerful category 4 hurricane that hit the island in September 2017. The system was already crumbling before the storm given years of lack of maintenance and investment.
Source link
