According to multiple sources, the nearly country-wide blackout cost the Dominican Republic about US$200 million in lost goods and services. Commerce came to a halt, traffic got all tangled up, and basic services were stymied for many hours.
There are at least two ways to measure just how much money the blackouts cost. They make for interesting reading. One of the ways is to calculate the Cost of Energy Loss which is defined as the economic harm the nation’s economy suffers for each megawatt hour of energy not supplied.
“Experts” told the El Caribe newspaper that in an emerging economy such as ours, the cost per MWh is between US$8000 and US$20,000. Given the fact that during the blackout last week at least 25,000MWh were lost, the Cost of Energy Loss was easily US$200,000,000.
Another way to figure out the losses is to use the nation’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and the total energy use. For fiscal year 2025, the Dominican GDP has been set at US$126 billion and the demand for energy in 2025 set at 25,000 Gigawatts (GWh), the result is that the country lost US$5,040 per MWh X 25,000 MWh not supplied, or US$126 million in total losses.
According to the Ministry of Energy and Mines, the collapse of the system began with the failure of a transmission line of 138 Kv that connects two substations, Hainamosa and Villa Duarte. This activated protocols that automatically cut off several generation facilities, which, in turn, created an imbalance between supply and demand. Greater Santo Domingo and the surrounding are were the most affected areas, and after the electricity was on again on Tuesday, 24 February 2026, the Committee on Failure Analysis began its study of the data to establish the exact sequence of events.
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El Caribe
2 March 2026