El apagón afecta el suministro eléctrico.

Apagón is a noun meaning power outage, blackout, or major electrical cut.

It comes from the verb apagar, which means to turn off or to put out.

So:

• apagar la luz = to turn off the light
• un apagón = a blackout / power outage

The ending -ón often makes a word feel bigger or more intense, so apagón suggests a significant outage, not just switching something off normally.

Spanish usually uses the definite article more often than English.

So El apagón afecta el suministro eléctrico literally says The blackout affects the electrical supply.

In English, you might also say A blackout affects the power supply if speaking more generally. In Spanish, el can still be used in a general or contextual way, especially when referring to a known event or phenomenon.

Here, afectar is being used as a direct transitive verb:

• El apagón afecta el suministro eléctrico.

That means the blackout affects the electrical supply.

You do not use a here because el suministro eléctrico is a thing, not a person. Also, with afectar, the direct object usually comes without a preposition unless you are using the personal a with a person:

• La crisis afecta la economía.
• La noticia afectó a mi madre.

So in your sentence, el suministro eléctrico is the direct object, and no a is needed.

Suministro means supply or provision.
Eléctrico means electrical or electric.

Together, suministro eléctrico means:

• electrical supply
• power supply
• electricity supply

In everyday English, power supply or electricity supply may sound more natural, but the Spanish phrase is completely standard.

In Spanish, most adjectives normally come after the noun.

So:

• suministro eléctrico = electrical supply
• servicio público = public service
• energía renovable = renewable energy

English often puts adjectives before the noun, but Spanish usually places them after. That is the normal pattern here.

Eléctrico has a written accent because Spanish stress rules require it.

Without going too deep into technical grammar, the stress falls on lé:

• e-LÉC-tri-co

The accent mark shows where the word is stressed.

This is important because Spanish pronunciation is more predictable when you pay attention to accent marks. So eléctrico should not be pronounced like e-lec-TRI-co.

A simple Latin American-style approximation is:

el ah-pah-GON ah-FEK-tah el soo-mee-NEES-troh eh-LEK-tree-koh

A more careful breakdown:

• El = el
• apagón = ah-pah-GON
• afecta = ah-FEK-tah
• el suministro = el soo-mee-NEES-troh
• eléctrico = eh-LEK-tree-koh

A few useful pronunciation notes:

• g in apagón is a hard g sound, like in go
• c in afecta and eléctrico sounds like k before a, o, u
• In most of Latin America, c before e/i sounds like s, so eléctrico has an s-like sound in the c before tr

It is often similar to English affect, but you should not assume they match perfectly in every context.

In many cases, they do line up well:

• La sequía afecta la agricultura. = The drought affects agriculture.

But Spanish afectar can also sound a bit broader depending on context: harm, impact, influence, or disrupt may be better translations in English.

In your sentence, a natural English translation might be:

• The blackout affects the power supply
• The blackout disrupts the electricity supply

So yes, it is related to English affect, but context matters.

You probably would not use that version in the same way.

• apagón = blackout / outage
• falta de luz = literally lack of light/electricity, often used more informally to mean power outage

But La falta de luz afecta el suministro eléctrico sounds a bit odd logically, because both ideas are very close to each other. It can sound like the loss of electricity affects the electricity supply, which is somewhat circular.

El apagón afecta el suministro eléctrico is more formal and works better in news, reports, or technical contexts.

Yes. A word-for-word translation is useful for learning, but natural English might vary depending on context.

Possible natural translations include:

• The blackout affects the power supply.
• The blackout disrupts the electricity supply.
• The outage affects the electrical supply.

If this were in a news report, disrupts might sound especially natural.

It sounds neutral to formal.

Why?

• apagón is standard vocabulary
• afecta is neutral and common
• suministro eléctrico sounds more technical or institutional than everyday speech

A casual everyday version might be something like:

• El apagón afecta la luz.
• El apagón está causando problemas con la electricidad.

But your original sentence sounds more like something from a news article, public announcement, or report.