cuba foresees simultaneous blackouts in up to 22 percent of the country this Sunday due to breakdowns and maintenance of the power plants as well as fuel shortages, according to the daily report of the state company Unión Eléctrica (UNE).
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This percentage of affected people is the lowest in the last three dayswhen it reached 34 percent of the maximum demand, after the Antonio Guiteras terrestrial thermoelectric plant (CTE) – the main one in the country – stopped operations due to a breakage in the boiler.
Fuel, one of Cuba’s main problems
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UNE -dependent on the Ministry of Energy and Mines- indicated that the service will be affected by the lack of generation capacity in the National Energy System (SEN) and its forecasts for the day estimate a maximum capacity of electric generation of 2,475 megawatts (MW) for a demand that will reach 2,950 MW.
The company also stated that Three generating units are out of service due to breakdown, another is undergoing maintenancewhile 42 distributed generation plants and one floating plant are paralyzed due to lack of fuel.
On Saturday night there were protests and arrests. Lots of state security, police. In the Vedado neighborhood there are a few blocks where the power did not reach and people came out to protest, tempers flared when they began to say Freedom and down with the dictatorship.
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It should be noted that the island has been in a very precarious state due to the recurring breakdowns in the seven thermal power plants, obsolete due to more than four decades of use, the lack of investment and maintenance, as well as imported fuel.
About, The Cuban Government has rented up to seven floating power plants in the last six years (of which there are currently only five) to alleviate the lack of generation capacity, a quick but temporary, polluting and expensive solution.
Frequent power outages have affected the country’s economy – which shrank by one to two percent in 2023– and fuel social discontent in a society already severely affected by an economic crisis for the past four years.
They have also been the incentive of anti-government protests in recent years, including those of July 11, 2021 – the largest in decades – and those of March 17 in Santiago de Cuba (east) and other locations.
EFE
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