The Ministry of Energy and Mines (Minem) of Cuba reported the third total outage of the Electrical System National (SEN) in less than three days.
“A few minutes ago another disconnection of the Electrical System occurred, SEN. Immediately restoration work beganMinem wrote on social networks.
The first total system crash, the first crash event “zero national energy coverage”according to Minem, occurred on Friday morning, after an “unforeseen” departure from a key plant for the SEN destabilized the entire system.
The progress of the first hours to reenergize and recover the SEN was frustrated again on Saturday morningwhen another total disconnection was recorded. At the end of that same day, the subsystem that had been created in the western half of the island collapsed.
By this time, milestones had been achieved such as the interconnection of circuits from Mariel (west) to HolguÃn (east) and the start-up and synchronization of several thermoelectric plants, including Antonio Guiteras, one of the largest in the country.
From the first moment, Minem had warned that the recovery tasks of the SEN They were going to be complex and gradual.
The Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levyassured this Sunday in an appearance before this third total blackout that the Government hopes that the SEN will once again reach the state in which it was on Friday before the first massive incident on Tuesday.
He added that the majority of consumers will have electricity again “tomorrow, Monday” and that “the last customer may perhaps be receiving (power) the next Tuesday.”
De la O recognized that the situation in the electrical system is “very tense” and that the lack of electricity has left “the majority of Cubans” without water in their homes. The motors that pump the liquid to homes use electricity.
The SEN is in a very precarious state due to the shortage of fuel – a result of the lack of foreign currency to import it – and the frequent breakdowns in obsolete thermoelectric plantswith four decades of exploitation and chronic lack of investments.
Blackouts have been common for years but The situation has worsened in recent weeks. In recent days, there have been days with maximum impact rates above 50%, that is, moments when half of the country was simultaneously without power.
Frequent blackouts damage the Cuban economy — which contracted 1.9% in 2023 and is still below 2019 levels, according to official data — and drive social unrest in a society affected by an economic crisis. worsened in recent years.
They have also been the trigger for anti-government protests, including those on July 11, 2021 —the largest in decades—, those in Nuevitas and Havana in August and September 2022, and those on March 17 in Santiago de Cuba (east) and other locations.
The last time a similar “zero production” situation occurred was in September 2022, after Category Three Hurricane Ian passed through the eastern end of the island. This caused a serious imbalance and recovery took days.
