Power restored to almost all of Puerto Rico after massive blackout

After a massive New Year’s Eve blackout, nearly all of Puerto Rico’s power has been restored — though the island is also projected to face power shortages later in the day Thursday.

Luma, the company that manages electricity for the island, said 99 percent of its customers had power as of Thursday morning. On Tuesday night, 90 percent of the company's 1.47 million clients across Puerto Rico were without power.

Though the power was mostly restored as of Thursday morning, LUMA also said in a post on the social platform X that it projects there will be a power shortage Thursday afternoon that will result in temporary rotating outages. It urged customers to conserve energy. 

The company is still investigating the cause of Tuesday’s blackout, which plunged more than 1 million people into darkness on New Year's Eve. 

The power outages are the latest in a series of long-standing power issues faced by Puerto Rico. The U.S. territory has struggled with its electric grid since it was severely damaged in 2017’s Hurricane Maria.