Blackout hits Puerto Rico after two power plants shut down

A blackout hit Puerto Rico's capital and surrounding areas on Thursday after two of the US territory's main power plants shut down as officials warn the power company is struggling to remain operational.

The capital of San Juan was left without power, along with the neighbouring municipalities of Caguas, Bayamon and Carolina, company spokeswoman Yohari Molina told The Associated Press. She said crews were working to repair the problem but that it wasn't clear how many customers were affected by the outage. More than 970,000 people live in the areas hit by the blackout.

By Thursday afternoon, officials announced that power had been restored to the island's main international airport and several hospitals.

Puerto Rico's Electric Power Authority tweeted that the Palo Seco and San Juan plants had been shut down to protect the electrical system, but it is unclear what caused the shutdown. Power company director Justo Gonzalez said crews were flying over the affected line to determine where the failure occurred.

The power outage comes nearly three weeks after a fire erupted at one of the company's substations, knocking two power plants offline, leaving some people without power for two days. The investigation into that incident is still ongoing.

Juan Manuel Fernandez, a 44-year-old customer service representative who lives in Caguas, was affected by Thursday's outage as well as the February 11 outage, which occurred just days after crews restored power in his neighbourhood and more than five months after Hurricane Maria.

"You just resign yourself," he said of the newest outage. "It's become normal."

Overall, more than 15 per cent of power customers remain in the dark nearly six months after Hurricane Maria, which destroyed two-thirds of the island's power distribution system. Officials have said they expect power to be fully restored by May.

Meanwhile, a federal control board overseeing the island's finances recently obtained a US$300-million loan for the power company, warning it will only serve to keep it operational through late March. Board members said they expect to request more loans in upcoming weeks.

Governor Ricardo Rossello announced in January that he plans to privatise the power company in 18 months. The company is US$9 billion in debt and operating with infrastructure that is nearly three times older than the industry average.

- AP