- On October 19, a second blackout of the electrical system occurred in Cuba, after small pockets of electricity had been restored throughout the island after the service was cut on Friday, October 18.
A failure in the National Electrical System (SEN) of Cuba caused a total blackout, so thousands of people on this island have been without electricity since Friday, October 18. Although the government carried out a maneuver to restore the service, the recovery process failed and the areas that had electricity were left in darkness again.
The Cuban authorities confirmed on Saturday, October 19, that work began to start the terrestrial thermoelectric plant (CTE).
“Once the work at blackouts-in-cuba-will-continue-to-be-critical-this-weekend/” title=”The situation of blackouts in Cuba will continue to be critical this weekend”>CTE Guiteras is completed, the start-up work begins today to synchronize and strengthen the (national electrical energy) system,” indicated the Government of the province of Matanzas through its social networks.
Lázaro Guerra, general director of Electricity of the Ministry of Energy and Mines (Minem), indicated that they are working to start up the available generating units and gradually reestablish the interconnection of the SEN in the western-central and eastern areas of the island, although with a “limited power”.
The Cuban government blames the blockade for the electrical emergency
The president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, said in a meeting to analyze the energy crisis situation that “there will be no rest” until electrical service is restored on the island.
The president blamed the “blockade” and said that the country is the victim of “financial persecution” and attributed the lack of repairs in the SEN to the lack of foreign currency.
The energy crisis in Cuba
The SEN crisis worsened in the last week with effects that escalated to the maximum so far this year with almost 51% of the country with simultaneous blackouts, according to daily reports from the Electrical Union (UNE), dependent on the Ministry of Energy and Mines.
The power outages simultaneously affected more than half of the island, and caused blackouts of up to 20 hours in some provinces.
The Cuban electrical system is in a very precarious state due to frequent breakdowns in the generating units of its seven thermoelectric plants, obsolete due to their more than four decades of use and the chronic lack of investments and maintenance, to which is added the deficit of imported fuel (diesel and fuel oil) and shortage of foreign currency.
Blackouts have been common for several years, but since the end of August the situation has worsened to reach levels similar to those of the worst moments, such as the beginning of this year and July and August of 2021 and 2022.
In recent years, the Cuban government has rented several floating power plants to mitigate the lack of generation capacity.
With information from EFE.
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