Customers in Puerto Rico experienced an average of 27 hours of power grid interruptions annually between 2021 and 2024, excluding major events, such as hurricanes, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday.

This compared with mainland U.S. customers typically experiencing around two hours of outages per year, excluding major events, the EIA said in a note.

Puerto Rico customers experienced an average of 19 service interruptions last year, 14 unrelated to major events and five caused by them, the EIA said.

The agency said that besides severe weather, power interruptions in Puerto Rico were also tied to issues with transmission, distribution, and generating capacity.

Puerto Rico has long dealt with regular and widespread power outages due to the island’s crumbling infrastructure, the 2017 bankruptcy of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), and a string of devastating hurricanes.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Ashitha Shivaprasad in Bengaluru Editing by Tomasz Janowski)