In Puerto Rico, House of Representatives Government Committee chair Víctor Parés Otero demanded that the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau (NEPR) impose "the most severe fines possible" on LUMA Energy over the April 16, 2025 island-wide blackout, which left 1.5 million customers without power. His call followed the Energy Bureau’s final report, published Wednesday, which attributes the outage to vegetation near transmission line 50100 and rodent damage to control cables.
Parés Otero said LUMA failed in maintenance and vegetation clearing, and that the primary protection system did not work because of communication problems. He said fines of up to $125,000 per day under Law 2-2025 could apply and called anything less unacceptable. The report found LUMA flew an aerial patrol of the line, on the Barceloneta-Manatí border, on April 11, 2025, five days before the blackout, but missed the vegetation that caused the fault, though it detected other spots needing correction.
A tree near the conductor caused an electric arc. The Manatí protection system worked as designed, but the Cambalache (Arecibo) breaker did not operate because rodents damaged the control cable, so neither primary nor backup protection sent the trip order. The bureau drew on a root-cause report LUMA commissioned from the engineering firm Exponent.
The report is dated September 21, and LUMA filed no objections within the 20-day period. In written statements on Thursday, LUMA validated the findings, pointed to "inherited design deficiencies" from PREPA (AEE) and said it has intensified inspections and proactive repairs.