Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico Is on the Brink of a Power Supply Crisis

“It’s not normal to have blackouts, it’s not normal that our students cannot study properly, it’s not normal to have to live with generators," a community activist said

RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP via Getty Images

Puerto Rico residents will see another increase in their electricity bill, even though they already pay twice as much as mainland U.S. customers for unreliable service.

The increase comes the same week in which hundreds of thousands of Puerto Rican power customers were subjected to blackouts several days in a row.

The entities in charge of the island’s power supply, Luma Energy and the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, have blamed the outages on their inability to generate enough electricity to meet consumer demand, the electrical grid’s lack of proper maintenance and other unforeseen circumstances, including a “sargassum event“ where seaweed clogged the water filters for condensers.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com.

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