After an island-wide blackout hit Puerto Rico Wednesday, April 16, LUMA Energy has restored service to nearly 99% of customers as of 6:00 AM today.
The outage left 1.4 million customers without electricity and 328,000 without water. It's the second islandwide blackout to hit Puerto Rico in less than four months, with the previous one occurring on New Year's Eve, according to an NPR report.
LUMA Energy said in a statement that it has conducted aerial patrols with helicopters, which identified that the event was caused by a combination of factors. Preliminary analysis points to a protection system failure as the initial trigger, followed by the presence of vegetation on a transmission line between Cambalache and Manatí. This sequence of issues led to a cascading event that resulted in an island-wide outage.
"This event once again highlights the fragility of the electric system, something LUMA has pointed out since the beginning of its operations," LUMA stated. "We remain committed to transforming the system into one that is safer and more reliable for all customers in Puerto Rico."
"We deeply understand the frustration and hardship this service interruption has caused our customers. The LUMA team is fully committed to restoring service as quickly and safely as possible to every customer, in coordination with the available generation. As part of our response efforts, we are investigating the cause of this incident, including what role and effect the long-recognized impact of the fragility of the system had on this island-wide outage," LUMA stated.
As of 5:00 a.m. on April 18, LUMA has restored electricity service to 1,450,367 customers, representing 98.8%, in less than 48 hours since the island-wide outage was registered. With this progress, LUMA has met the initial projection to restore service to at least 90% of customers by 12:40 p.m. Friday.
LUMA Emergency Operations Center (LEOC) remains active, and teams continue to work swiftly and safely to stabilize the system and restore service to remaining customers.
Priority to Critical Facilities
As part of LUMA’s emergency procedures, the restoration of service to critical facilities—including hospitals and water providers — has been prioritized. According to the most recent information, the service has already been restored to between 98% and 100% of hospitals in most regions and 100% of correctional institutions and airports.
