**Excerpt:**
Puerto Rico is reeling from another devastating power crisis, with nearly half the island—620,000 people—still without electricity days after a system-wide failure on April 16, 2025. The outage, which initially left 1.4 million customers in the dark, underscores the fragility of Puerto Rico’s aging grid, a problem worsened by hurricanes, underinvestment, and slow modernization efforts. While partial restoration has brought power back to 57.9% of households, disparities persist, with San Juan at 84% recovery and Ponce at just 27%. Governor Jenniffer González warns that fixing the root cause could take days, as residents endure disruptions to hospitals, businesses, and daily life. With blackouts becoming routine, calls grow for urgent, long-term solutions to end the cycle of instability. “We cannot keep patching up a broken system,” González insists. The crisis highlights the island’s desperate need for a resilient energy future—before the next outage strikes.
