On Monday, 23 February 2026, around 10:50am, a major failure in the National Interconnected Electric System (SENI) caused a massive blackout across the Dominican Republic, heavily impacting Greater Santo Domingo and several other provinces. The government said most power would be resumed by midnight.
The national blackout is the second in four months. The previous was in 11 November 2025.
According to official reports from the Dominican Electricity Transmission Company (ETED) and the Ministry of Energy and Mines, the blackout was triggered by a technical failure on the 138 kV Hainamosa–Villa Duarte transmission line. Specifically, the incident involved the explosion of a circuit breaker at the Hainamosa substation around 10:50am.
The technical failure was exacerbated when the system’s protection mechanisms, including the busbar differential protection, failed to activate. This led to a frequency instability that forced generation plants to shut down automatically in a “cascading” effect to protect the integrity of the national grid.
The blackout impacted the Santo Domingo metro and most activities nationwide. It did not affect areas not on the national grid, namely areas in Punta Cana and La Romana, for instance.
Current status and recovery
The Minister of Energy and Mines, Joel Santos, reported that emergency protocols were activated immediately following the event. By mid-afternoon on 23 February, the authorities confirmed that approximately 30% of the system had been restored, prioritizing essential services such as hospitals, airports, and water systems through backup power and hydroelectric generation. Power, nevertheless, was restored after working hours in most areas. And in my areas, power did not turn back on until after midnight.
In the Dominican Republic, power plants were an essential in most businesses and homes. Nevertheless, as the power became more reliable, less power plants were installed, with most relying on inverters for short blackouts. The Monday blackout, nevertheless lasted more than eight hours. The cost of running power plants for long hours is very expensive and not contemplated in most budgets.
The power outage was a second one for the central district of the capital city, that on Thursday, 20 February had already suffered a long blackout explained as a failure in the Los Prados circuit. That blackout that lasted for around eight hours impacted large areas in Piantini, Julieta Morales, Quisqueya, Los Praditos (parcial), Evaristo Morales, Enriquillo, Las Palmas, Savica, Juan Pablo Duarte de Herrera.
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Jose Peguero
24 February 2026