About 10 million Cubans stayed this Friday without electric current after a failure in a substation in Havana destabilizes the national electrical system (SEN) and cause the fourth total blackout on the island in less than six months.
Cuba is plunged into a great energy crisis – causa and effect, at the same time, of its deep economic crisis – which has been aggravated since the middle of last year and reflects the chronicle infinance of the SEN and the precarious state in which its production units and its electrical distribution system are located.
According to the Ministry of Energy and Mines (Minem) and the State Electric Union (UNE) of the country, the “disconnection” of the SEN occurred around 20:15 local time (00:15 GMT on Saturday), presumably due to a breakdown in the tenmer substation, on the outskirts of Havana. This caused the chain failure of several electric production units, the subsequent “important loss of generation in the west of Cuba” and, subsequently, the “total fall” of the system.
In different parts of Havana and the country, according to various testimonies, strong fluctuations of the electric flow and intermittent blackouts were experienced before the total cut of the supply occurred. “You work tirelessly for its most prompt recovery,” the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, wrote on social networks.
The Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, said that at three hours of the total disconnection “microsystems” have already worked in 11 of the 14 provinces of the country. UNE added that these islands with current served “vital centers.”
In the last three national blackouts, registered in October, November and December 2024, the UNE began reactivating microsystems (fed by large generators who employ fueloil or diesel) and then proceeded to interconnect them and to take the current to the great plants to be able to turn them on and synchronize them with the SEN. This complex process of uncertain progress – and sometimes with setbacks – lasted for several days in the three previous national blackouts. The Government came to suspend work and school activity throughout the country. At the moment the authorities have not spoken about it.
For its part, the Ministry of Tourism stressed that the sector has a “solid energy support” – in reference to the generators of the hotels – which “guarantees the continuous operation” of its facilities and services.
Energy crisis
The SEN has been in a very precarious situation for months due to the frequent breakdowns in its seven thermoelectric plants, with decades of exploitation and a chronic investment deficit, and due to the lack of diesel and fueloil for its generation engines distributed throughout the country, because the State does not have the necessary currencies.
This Friday was expected that, at the time of greatest consumption, the deficit reached 42 % of the demand, but the percentage arrived last February to reach 57 %, the highest rate in at least two years, according to the daily data of the UNE colwous by EFE.
Independent experts explain that the energy crisis is due to a chronic infinance of this sector, completely in the hands of the Cuban state since the triumph of the revolution in 1959. The Government points to the effects of US sanctions in this area.
Cuba rented at one time up to seven floating centrals (patanas) to a Turkish company to alleviate the lack of sen generation capacity, but at present there is only one docked in the port of Havana (without official explanation in this regard). It was a quick, but onerous solution that did not stop the background problem.
According to various independent calculations, the Cuban government would specify between 8,000 and 10,000 million dollars to refloat the SEN, an investment out of reach. And any solution would be possible only in the long term.
The frequent blackouts have the Cuban economy, which contracted 1.9 % in 2023 and did not grow last year, according to estimates of the government itself. According to these figures, the GDP of the island remains below the 2019 levels and will not exceed this 2025, for which the Executive provides for a 1 %advance.
The cuts also generate a strong social discontent and have been triggered in recent years of unusual protests on the island, such as the massive of July 11, 2021, those of the summer of 2022 in Havana and Nuevitas (East) or those of March 17, 2024 in Santiago de Cuba (East) and other localities.
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