LUMA Energy experienced a blackout at 5:30 a.m. on Dec. 31, 2024, which left the entire island out of service. Within two-and-a-half hours of the blackout, LUMA's system was able to start re-energizing customers, and within 28 hours, LUMA restored service to 95 percent of its total customers. On Jan. 1, LUMA restored power to 1.4 million or 98.9 percent of customers with more than 1,500 MW in the system. As of Jan. 2, the utility restored power to all municipalities.
Following the blackout, Juan Saca, the president and CEO of LUMA, sent a message to customers and media outlets advising them of the potential for load shedding and service interruptions due to generation limitations during peak hours.
"Typically, system stability is fragile at a heightened risk when first emerging from a blackout like the one that occurred yesterday and as the larger generation units enter back into service, they must increase production slowly due to technical limitations," he noted in his message.
He also provided these updates:
- At about 2 p.m., a separate issue at Aguirre caused a wide-area system event impacting other generation stations. This caused the sudden loss of 550 MW and impacted service for more than 600,000 customers. LUMA's team momentarily stabilized the system to prevent the interruption of service to more customers and, working in collaboration with the generators, managed to restore service to more than 200,000 customers.
- At about 7 p.m. and with about 73% of its customers in service, another event was reported at the same location, impacting service for customers during peak consumption hours.
He advised the customers that it was important to understand that there was still potential for generation shortfalls in the coming days.
"We know and understand how frustrating it has been for our customers to be without service for extended periods of time," he says. "That's why our load-shedding plan includes rotating sectors periodically to minimize the impact on your daily life."
Late in the afternoon on Jan. 2, he advised customers about a projected generation deficit that would result in temporary outages as LUMA continued to stabilize the energy system following the island-wide outage. While LUMA Energy has restored power to all of the customers impacted by this outage, the energy system is still recovering, according to Saca, and the utility is working closely with its generation partners, Genera, EcoEléctrica, and AES to add additional generation capacity.
"The energy system remains very fragile, and it is likely some customers will experience temporary service disruptions today between 5:45 p.m. and 10 p.m.," he stated in his Jan. 2 message to the customers.
He continued saying that the LUMA team remains focused on stabilizing the energy system, which can result in a short-term loss of power, also known as a “load shed.”
"These temporary rotating outages, which we know are frustrating for our customers, are necessary to prevent larger-scale outages and to help minimize the impact on your daily life," he stated.
He stated that it is essential to strengthen both the transmission and distribution system and address the problem of Puerto Rico's "weak generation system."
"It is important to remember that we still do not have enough available generation on the island to continuously and reliably serve the people of Puerto Rico," he says. "In the last year, we have been forced to enact over 100 interruptions because of generation instability or a lack of sufficient generation capacity for LUMA to distribute."
To stay updated on the restoration efforts and outages, visit www.lumapr.com or follow LUMA on social media.
You can also learn more about how LUMA is training the workforce of tomorrow through its Department of Labor-registered apprenticeship program. The apprentices are working alongside journeyman lineworkers to continue to improve the resiliency and reliability of the power system in Puerto Rico. Listen to a new episode, which airs on Jan. 3, at linelife.podbean.com.
