DR1 Daily News - Dominican Republic

The nationwide blackout the Dominican Republic suffered as of the afternoon of Tuesday, 11 November 2025, highlights the importance of alternate power systems. The Dominican Republic is one of the most resilient to power outages because past frequent blackouts resulted in the generalized practice of businesses installing backup systems.

On Tuesday, 11 November 2025 at 1:23pm, the national power grid suffered a massive blackout caused by a malfunction at the 138/69 kV SPMI–138 kV SPM-Cumayasa substation. The failure occurred during the manual opening of the 138 kV line switches connecting San Pedro de Macorís and Cumayasa, triggering a chain reaction that led to a nationwide power outage. Power was fully restored by 2:30am on Wednesday, 12 November, but was out for most of the country all throughout the afternoon of that Tuesday.

The blackout paralyzed mass transportation systems, including the metro and cable car, disrupted production sectors, and caused widespread...