Cuba begins work to start up main thermoelectric plant amid blackout
Authorities say that electricity has been restored in very specific areas of Havana and other Cuban provinces.
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Cuban authorities confirmed on Saturday that work has begun on the Antonio Guiteras thermal power plant (CTE) , the country’s main power plant, whose disconnection from the national electrical system 24 hours ago caused a total blackout in the Caribbean country.
“Once the work at CTE Guiteras is complete, the start-up work will begin today to synchronize and strengthen the (national electrical energy) system,” the governor of the province of Matanzas (west), where Guiteras is located, noted on its social networks.
Cuba was left completely in the dark this Friday after the “unexpected” exit of this CTE from the National Electric System (SEN) due to a breakdown. After recovering some isolated areas, the country went dark again due to a failure in the SEN recovery process on Saturday morning.
The state-owned company Unión Eléctrica (UNE) has reported, however, that electricity has been restored in very specific areas of Havana and other Cuban provinces.
Causes of energy crisis
The causes of the current energy crisis are the shortage of imported fuel – a result of the lack of foreign currency – to supply engines and power plants, and the repeated breakdowns in its obsolete thermoelectric plants, according to UNE.
The country consumes 8 million tons of fuel annually, of which it only produces three million, according to data from the Ministry of Energy and Mines.
The island currently has seven Soviet-made CTEs – built more than four decades ago and affected by a chronic lack of investment – with a total of 20 generating units (seven of which were stopped in recent days due to breakdowns and maintenance).
As a result, blackouts have become commonplace for several years now. The Cuban government has rented several floating power plants in recent years to mitigate the lack of generating capacity.
Frequent power outages are damaging the Cuban economy – which shrank by 1.9% in 2023 and is still below 2019 levels, according to official data – and are fuelling social discontent in a society affected by an economic crisis that has worsened in recent years.
They have also sparked anti-government protests, including those on July 11, 2021 – the largest in decades – and those on March 17 in Santiago de Cuba (east) and other localities.
