Fury at Private Power Giants as Puerto Rico Suffers New Year's Eve Blackout

The latest failure of Puerto Rico's privatized power grid on Tuesday plunged much of the island into darkness on New Year's Eve, sparking fresh anger toward the system's for-profit operators and political leaders who sold off the U.S. territory's public utility company.

Tuesday's outage left over a million people without power, according to local officials. LUMA Energy, the Canadian American firm in charge of power transmission and distribution on the island, said in an update posted to social media on Tuesday afternoon that it is "working closely with Genera PR and other generators to restore power as quickly and safely as possible."

Genera PR, a subsidiary of the New York-based gas company New Fortress, received a multimillion-dollar, decade-long contract last year to operate Puerto Rico's power generators. In 2021, Puerto Rico's government—under the leadership of Gov. Pedro Pierluisi—chose LUMA to take over the island's power transmission and distribution operations in the wake of Hurricane Maria. The 15-year contract agreement, when it was announced, was loudly decried by advocacy groups as "terrible."

"In its singular pursuit of American investors, the local government has ignored political protests and demonstrations, disregarded the concerns raised by opposition political parties, and ignored studies that caution against privatizing the public power utility," Pedro Cabán, a professor in the Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Department at the University at Albany, wrote for The American Prospect last year. "For many Puerto Ricans, the Pierluisi government seems intent on converting the archipelago into a dystopia for its people."

"LUMA has Puerto Rico in an energy stranglehold, and Puerto Ricans shouldn't have to put up with continued subpar service."

The Associated Press quoted Puerto Ricans expressing their frustration over the New Year's Eve blackout, which came months after an outage left 350,000 people without power.

"It had to be on the 31st of December!" exclaimed a man identified as Manuel, who said Tuesday was his birthday. "There is no happiness."

AP noted that the latest blackout "fanned simmering anger against Luma and Genera PR... as a growing number of people call for their ouster."

Camille Rivera, founder of La Brega Y Fuerza—a New York-based advocacy group that works to organize Puerto Ricans on the U.S. mainland—said in a statement Tuesday that "LUMA needs to fix the grid or get the hell out of Puerto Rico."

“Almost 25 years into the 21st century, it is ridiculous that Puerto Rico's power grid has failed its people again," said Rivera. "Puerto Ricans deserve answers and accountability from LUMA for this latest fiasco."

"LUMA has Puerto Rico in an energy stranglehold, and Puerto Ricans shouldn't have to put up with continued subpar service," Rivera added. "In 2025, it should be out with the old and in with the new—we have to fundamentally address the energy crisis facing Puerto Rico, reevaluate Luma's role as an energy provider, and build more sustainable solutions."

Conservative Gov.-elect Jenniffer González Colón, who is set to take office on Thursday, wrote on social media that "we can't keep relying on an energy system that fails our people."

AP reported that the incoming governor has "called for the creation of an 'energy czar' to review potential Luma contractual breaches while another operator is found."

Jeanette Ortiz, a resident of San Juan, told The Guardian on Tuesday that "the blackouts have been worse" since the privatization of the island's power grid.

"People have been angry for a while now," said Ortiz. "This is just what we needed to end the year."