Much of Puerto Rico loses power as controversy over its electricity providers intensifies

San Juan, Puerto Rico — A widespread power outage hit Puerto Rico Wednesday night, leaving more than 340,000 customers without electricity after two of the U.S. territory's power plants shut down.

The capital of San Juan was left without electricity as well as neighboring municipalities including Bayamón, Caguas and Carolina.

Luma Energy, which operates transmission and distribution for Puerto Rico's power authority, said on X that the outage was tied to an issue with the power plants' transmission lines. It provided a statement to The Associated Press saying it was investigating the outage that coincided with the shutdown of units operated by Genera PR, which operates and maintains state power generation units.