About 214,758 LUMA Energy customers were without electricity Wednesday night in Puerto Rico, according to the company’s website, as of 9:50 PM. LUMA attributed the outage to generation deficiencies and an incident in the transmission and distribution system affecting San Juan and Carolina. San Juan was hardest hit with 117,232 customers without power, followed by Carolina with 92,655.
Caguas and Bayamón reported only 2,065 and 1,590 customers without service, respectively. LUMA said its crews, working with Genera PR, were responding to the reported events and urged customers to stay away from downed cables and avoid danger zones. Genera PR explained that a disturbance in the transmission network operated by LUMA caused Unit 5 and the Trailer Mounted units of Central San Juan to go offline as protection systems activated to prevent further equipment damage.
Units GT2 and GT3 of Central Cambalache also shut down for the same reason. Other units in the South region reduced capacity abruptly but remained in service, while the transmission system operator remotely disconnected units at Central Mayagüez to prevent grid overloads. Genera PR said it was coordinating with the transmission and distribution operator to restore service and return units to the system, and would share further updates.