Some areas of Havana are beginning to have electricity after the total blackout on the island

Four small areas of Havana began to have electricity on Friday night after the start of the process of restoring the National Electric Power System (SEN) following the total blackout that the country suffered this morning.

In a recent update on the “energy emergency” that has occurred on the island, the Director General of Electricity of the Ministry of Energy and Mines (Minem), Lázaro Guerra, explained that the process of restoring microsystems throughout the island to bring energy to the thermoelectric plants continues.

The specialist said that work will be carried out all night and into the early hours of Saturday to get the available generating units up and running and gradually re-establish the SEN interconnection in the western, central and eastern areas of the island, although with “limited power.”

The SEN collapsed on Friday due to a breakdown at the Guiteras thermoelectric plant, one of the country’s main generators, according to the state-owned Unión Eléctrica (UNE), which is part of the Ministry of Energy and Mines.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz Canel said at a meeting to discuss the energy crisis that “there will be no rest” until electricity is restored on the island, stressing that the situation is “tense” and complex,” according to state television news.

The president stressed that “certain deficit levels will be maintained” and efforts will be made to reduce this “energy emergency ” whose fundamental causes are the lack of availability of fuel, of foreign currency for repairs and of electricity generation capacity.

The energy crisis

The SEN crisis worsened in the last week with effects that reached the highest level so far this year with almost 51% of the country experiencing simultaneous blackouts, according to daily reports from the UNE.

This meant that power cuts affected more than half of the island simultaneously, causing blackouts lasting 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 more than four decades of use and the chronic lack of investment and maintenance, in addition to the deficit of imported fuel (diesel and fuel oil) and the shortage of foreign currency.

Blackouts have been common for several years, but since the end of August the situation has worsened to levels similar to those of the worst times, 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 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. EFE