He total blackout What Cuba plunged into this Friday is the culmination of the energy crisis that the country has been suffering for years, an entrenched problem with a complex long-term solutionaccording to experts, which has serious economic and social consequences.
Cuba is immersed in a serious energy crisis due to fuel deficit —the result of the lack of foreign currency to import it— for its engines and generating plants, and the obsolescence of its seven thermoelectric plantsSoviet-made and with a lack of investments and maintenance.
After a few hours, the Ministry of Energy and Mines (Minem) of Cuba announced this Friday that has already begun in an incipient manner” the re-energization and “start-up” process in various parts of the country to try to restart the national electrical system after the national blackout.
After the blackout, the Government of Cuba had paralyzed non-essential state work activity as part of the measures announced the day before to face the current energy crisis.
What caused the blackout?
The Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plantin Matanzas (west), suffered a breakdown and had to leave the National Electric System (SEN). This unforeseen action unbalanced a system already in a high stress situation and caused what the state Electrical Union (UNE) called “zero national energy coverage.”
Are there precedents?
Cuba had been experiencing prolonged daily blackouts since the end of August. This Thursday, the maximum deficit rate of 2024 had been reached, after overcoming a simultaneous impact that shut down more than half of the country. This is the worst percentage in recent years, including the deficit peaks earlier this year and in July and August 2021 and 2022.
In Havana, which is usually preserved from the crisis due to its capital status, the minimum daily blackouts were already six hours. In some municipalities they had been exceeding 20 hours a day for weeks.
What are the causes of this energy crisis?
Currently, the causes are, according to the UNE, two: the shortage of imported fuel – a result of the lack of foreign currency – to supply the engines and power plants, and the repeated breakdowns in its obsolete thermoelectric plants.
Cuba, according to Minem data, consumes 8 million tons of fuel per year, of which it only produces three million. The Government has stated on some occasions that it dedicates more than 2 billion dollars to this item annually. Allies such as Venezuela, Russia and Mexico have been providing the country with most of the energy it requires.
The island currently has seven Soviet-made thermoelectric plants – built more than four decades ago and affected by a chronic investment deficit -, with a total of 20 generation units (seven of them were stopped in recent days due to breakdowns and maintenance. ).
In addition, Cuba has rented several floating power plants in recent years, of which only five are currently operating. It is a quick, but expensive and polluting solution, which does not solve the structural problem.
Are there precedents for a total blackout?
In September 2022, a similar situation of “zero production” occurred after Hurricane Ian, a category three (out of five) on the Saffir-Simpsom scale, passed through the western end of the island. This caused a serious imbalance that left the entire country in darkness. Recovery took days.
How much would it cost to clean up the SEN?
Experts agree that there are no simple solutions. The independent consultant Emilio Romero estimated the investment necessary to revive the Cuban electrical energy system at 10 billion dollars.
The general director of electricity of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, Lázaro Guerra, assured in an interview with EFE last April that this amount was not “unreasonable”, but did not provide his own figures.
What is the plan of the Government of Cuba?
The Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, assured for his part that “the leadership of the country” is dedicating “absolute priority to the attention and solution of this highly sensitive energy contingency for the nation” and stressed that “there will be no rest” until the electricity flow is restored in the country.
In the long term, Cuba aspires to substantially reform the SEN, according to Guerra, and move towards “energy independence” based on “national crude oil, accompanying gas and renewables”, with a prominent role for solar energy.
The Cuban Government promotes a plan to launch, with Chinese help, 100 solar parks by 2031 with an installed capacity of 2,000 megawatts, which could alleviate the energy deficit.
What economic consequences does the crisis have?
Frequent power outages severely damage the Cuban economy, which in 2023 contracted 1.9% and is still below 2019 levelspartly due to the stoppage forced by blackouts.
The Cuban Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, announced this Thursday in an unusual television appearance that starting this Friday all non-essential activity of state institutions would be paralyzed, ranging from the ministers’ agenda to schools and the majority. part of the public industry.
What is the social cost?
The blackouts paralyze the daily lives of Cubans: traffic lights, ATMs, service centers (gas stations), electronic payment in stores, administration offices, electric stoves in most homes, and water pumps in cities and homes do not work. . To cite just a few examples.
This has fueled discontent in a context of serious economic crisis for more than four yearswith shortages of basic goods (food, medicine, fuel), rampant inflation, growing dollarization and an unprecedented wave of migration due to its volume and temporal breadth.
Experts also consider blackouts as the catalysts for 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 locations.
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