BAYAMÓN, Puerto Rico — Power was restored to nearly all electrical customers across Puerto Rico on Wednesday after a sweeping blackout plunged the U.S. territory into darkness on New Year’s Eve. By Wednesday afternoon, power was back up for 98% of Puerto Rico’s 1.47 million utility customers, said Luma Energy, the private company overseeing transmission and distribution of power in the archipelago. The lights went off in Puerto Rico at 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday, darkening almost the entire archipelago as people prepared to ring in the New Year. The island’s power grid was ravaged in September 2017 by Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm. Last month, Puerto Rico’s Energy Bureau approved an increase of 2.2 cents per kilowatt hour for residential customers from January through March, causing electric bills for the average household to jump by nearly $20, the Energy Bureau says.

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