Puerto Rico’s average non-major-event outage duration rose 19% in 2025.

Confirmed facts

Puerto Rico electricity customers experienced an average of 36 hours of non-momentary power interruptions not caused by major events in 2025, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s August 10 release. EIA says that was 19% more than in 2024.

For 2021 through 2025, Puerto Rico customers averaged 29 hours of non-major-event power loss a year. EIA says mainland-U.S. customers generally experience about two hours a year without major events.

EIA separately reports 23 additional hours of interruption associated with major events in Puerto Rico in 2025. It says the annual frequency of interruptions excluding major-event days had doubled since 2021 and increased 13% from 2024 to 2025; the average customer experienced almost 16 interruptions in 2025.

Analysis

Reliability is a direct household and business cost issue even when an outage metric is not a price measure. Longer or more frequent interruptions can disrupt refrigeration, communications, work, school, medical equipment, and business operations. The figures make routine-service reliability—not only hurricane resilience—a material part of Puerto Rico’s electricity decision context.

The release distinguishes normal-operation performance from major events using the System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI). That distinction matters: a system can face storm-driven disruption and also have reliability problems on days that do not meet EIA’s major-event threshold.

Unknowns and limits

SAIDI is an average duration across customers; it does not show the experience at a particular address, feeder, utility rate class, or during a particular outage. The interruption-frequency measure is likewise an average, not a count guaranteed for an individual customer.

This release does not establish what caused every interruption, predict future reliability, or quantify a customer’s financial loss. It also does not show whether any future grid investment will change rates or outage duration. Customers evaluating backup power should use local utility information, program rules, electrical-safety guidance, and a qualified installer rather than infer a system size from these averages.