Power outage affecting nearly all of Puerto Rico on NYE

A power outage has hit nearly all of Puerto Rico as the United States territory prepares to celebrate New Year's Eve.

About 90 per cent of clients were without power on Tuesday morning, according to energy distribution company Luma Energy's real-time portal.

It will likely take 24 to 48 hours to turn the lights back on, "conditions permitting," Luma said in a statement.

"While the cause of the outage is under investigation, preliminary findings point to a failure in an underground line," Luma added.

Ivan Baez, a spokesman for power generator Genera, called the grid failure a "major incident" in a local radio interview.

He said that the line believed to have failed was operated by Luma and brought down plants belonging to Genera as well as private generators.

Declaraciones (8:30 a.m.): LUMA activa operaciones de emergencia para restaurar la energ?a despu?s de un apag?n en todo el sistema LUMA ha activado su Centro de Operaciones de Emergencia y actualmente est? trabajando con Genera y dem?s colaboradores de generaci?n para reiniciar?? LUMA Puerto Rico (@lumaenergypr) December 31, 2024

Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Pierluisi said in a post on social media that his administration was "demanding answers and solutions" from Luma and Genera.

He also said that the companies "need to speed up bringing back online the generator units ... and keep the people informed about the measures they're taking to bring service back to the whole island".

Genera's website showed two plants starting up again at 9.30am in the US territory.

Puerto Rico has long dealt with chronic power outages as its infrastructure crumbles.

It was hit hard by Hurricane Maria, a category four storm, in 2017.

with AP