On December 31, 2024, approximately 1.3 million Puerto Ricans lost their electricity in one of the most severe blackouts in the island’s recent history.

According to Luma Energy, the company responsible for distributing electricity throughout the island, a possible cause for the power outage was a problem with a power line that eventually had a ripple effect on affecting the rest of the island’s power grid.

While power outages in the U.S. territory aren’t uncommon, the disruption of New Year’s festivities has caused public outrage over the failure to maintain electricity for the inhabitants. “It’s sad that in this day, the last day of the year, that impacts our holiday traditions, our Navidad, everything is so sad for the people of Puerto Rico,” said Miosotis Corretjer, a resident of San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico, according to NBC. Since then, the situation has improved, with Luma Energy announcing that power has been restored for 98% of Puerto Rican customers. However, doubts remain about the company’s ability to reliably provide electricity to the island. 

In particular, the new governor of Puerto Rico, Jenniffer González, wants to make sure that such an occurrence wouldn’t happen again under her administration. Besides instructing Puerto Ricans to be moderate in their energy consumption to prevent further setbacks, González has campaigned on a promise to update the “fragile and faulty” power grid, as NBC puts it. A highlight of such reforms would be the appointment of an “energy czar” to oversee the operation of energy grids. She reinforced this message in a tweet on December 31, 2024, where she states that “stabilizing Puerto Rico’s energy grid will be [her] top priority.” Moreover, U.S. President Joe Biden engaged in discussions with former governor Pierluisi prior to the start of Governor González’s term, offering federal resources and assistance. This adds to the $9.9 billion that the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has since allocated for projects to repair damage dealt by Hurricane Maria in 2017, as per the FEMA website. 

This most recent instance of unreliable electricity emphasizes Puerto Rico’s historically underfunded power grid. In 2017, Hurricane Maria devastated the island and left much of the already aging infrastructure in ruins. Over the summer, the island was again hit by a hurricane, this time by Hurricane Ernesto, that left approximately 700,000 Puerto Ricans without power. Though affecting over 90% of Puerto Rican LUMA clients, the latest mass blackout definitely isn’t an isolated event, as reinforced by NPR. 

Consequently, many Puerto Ricans have expressed their lack of confidence in the government’s ability to provide a stable source of electricity. Frustrated residents have experienced this many times in the past, with one telling The New York Times, “I’m not surprised. No one is.” Moreover, residents have become increasingly frustrated with the Puerto Rican government over alleged “misspending”, according to PBS. With these challenges, Governor González inherited a weak economy after the territory declared bankruptcy in the midst of a $70 billion plus debt load. 

However, blame doesn’t fully rest with the federal government. Since the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) privatized in 2021, private corporations have taken over management of the island’s power grid, and its power generation assets, with Luma Energy handling the former and Genera PR the latter. Although Luma claims to have made significant strides in upgrading Puerto Rico’s energy infrastructure, the company remains accused of negligence towards the island’s “unreliable” energy systems, as per CBS news. With the Puerto Rican government no longer being involved in the management of the island’s energy grid, sole responsibility for the devastating power outages rests on the shoulders of private companies and contractors. Attorney Ramón Luis Nieves, a Puerto Rican native and energy grid critic, is just one of many who believe frequent power outages to be the fault of private energy corporations. “This disaster has been more than a decade in the making,” he said, according to Reuters, going on to speak about old and worn-out power generators that, “operators have failed to properly invest for years.” Reuters also reports that “protesters have called for the island’s government to cancel its contract with LUMA” for years. 

Puerto Rico’s recent blackouts are neither the first nor the last occurrences of such frustrating events in the country, yet progress cannot be made without addressing the root of the problem. In order to solve the island nation’s issue of stable power supply, privatization of their energy grid needs tighter regulation and oversight. Corporations like Luma need to be held accountable for gross negligence of key infrastructure in Puerto Rico’s power generation and distribution systems. Without a government force holding them accountable, there’s no guarantee that a solution will ever progress. The least Governor González’s new administration can do is to actively monitor the corporate development of Puerto Rico’s energy systems and ensure that progress towards solving this issue truly occurs.