Talking about the energy crisis in Cuba is like adding insult to injury. A situation that shows no signs of ceasing, month after month, week after week, and that, on the contrary, has been turning into an endless problem, a disastrous and paralyzing storm for the depressed national economy, and a population that has diminished in number of inhabitants and is aging.
Of the last few years, 2024 has been the darkest. Despite successive government plans to mitigate the crisis, long and constant power cuts have plagued the days and nights of Cubans, and have provoked constant criticism, and also street protests.
Burdened by the age and overexploitation of its power plants, the chronic fuel shortage, and the State’s financial inability to turn things around, this year the National Electric Power System (SEN) has seen its generating capacity decline and has collapsed on several occasions.
The situation, described to the National Assembly by Minister of Energy and Mines Vicente de la O Levy, is disastrous. According to De la O, in 2024 the availability of the system “reached its lowest levels since 2019,” in recent years 5 units have been lost ― equivalent to a third of the demand ― and distributed generation only produces 37% of its capacity.
If that were not enough, the electrical infrastructure suffered the onslaught of strong natural phenomena. Darkness reigned in the affected areas and even throughout the country, due to another general disconnection caused by the winds of Hurricane Rafael.
Given this overwhelming reality, the government has had to modulate its discourse and recognize that the end of the blackouts is practically impossible in the current circumstances, and transfer its promise of possible improvement to medium and long-term plans with a projected increase in renewable energies.
At the threshold of 2025, the year in which the authorities foresee a gradual advance in the country’s electricity scenario ― although, they have warned, it would not be immediate ― OnCuba proposes an approach to what has happened in the last 12 months in a sector recognized by the government as “strategic and sensitive.”
Sistema Electroenergético de Cuba: los derroteros de una crisis
A year of blackouts
The power cuts have not given Cubans a break in 2024. Although the last days of the previous year and the first of this one brought a slight respite, since January the generation deficit began to grow rapidly until reaching figures unprecedented in the current crisis. The power cuts of more than 1,000 MW have been daily, with sustained peaks of more than 1,500 and even records above 1,700 MW.
The figures have not only translated into a large part of the country being shut down during peak demand hours, but also into prolonged blackouts of 15 to 20 hours in a row in different areas of the island, and increasing power cuts in Havana, which in previous years had suffered less. The situation has hit families and naturally production and services, educational activities and cultural events; life in Cuba in general.
Furthermore, far from improving as the year progresses, the situation has gotten worse. If in March the authorities acknowledged “very tense” days, and in May there was talk of a “contingency” situation, after an “extremely tense” August the deficit continued to escalate until it forced the government to declare an “energy emergency” which was followed, almost immediately, by the first of the SEN disconnections. After other collapses and negative records, December has not looked any better either.
Breakdowns and maintenance: the never-ending story
Breakdowns at long-lived Cuban thermoelectric plants were the order of the day in 2024. Something similar could be said of previous years, only now the old units ― almost all with more than two or three decades of use and a large debt of capital maintenance ― accumulate greater exploitation in their ferrous armor, in addition to more and more scars, repair after repair.
At this point it would be idle to count how many times the thermoelectric plants on the island have broken down. In the year that ends there were practically no days without one ― or even several ― out of the system due to breakdowns, while others stopped for days, weeks or months for scheduled or “unpostponable” maintenance. Once reintegrated, they were taken out of the system again sooner rather than later. To not go too far, today they are the ones that do not generate electricity.
This epidemic of breakdowns and repairs, which has affected both the Guiteras and Felton as well as the more stable Cienfuegos units ― both currently closed until 2025 ― is joined by the progressive deterioration of the engines of distributed generation, the departure, due to lack of financing, of most of the Turkish floating power plants operating in the country, and the increasingly unstable supply of fuel.
Sistema Electroenergético de Cuba: los derroteros de una crisis
One, two and three collapses of the SEN
Just hours after Prime Minister Manuel Marrero declared an “energy emergency” and announced measures to deal with the situation ― including the paralysis of all activities not “strictly essential” ― the SEN suffered its first collapse of the year. It was October 18 and an “unforeseen exit” of the Guiteras plant completely plunged the country into darkness.
It was not an unknown scenario, since in September 2022, after Hurricane Ian, a similar situation had occurred. This time, after that first total disconnection — which lasted for almost five days, with other failures while work was being done on the restoration —, in just two months there have been two other general collapses until the day this summary is being published: one, during the passage of Hurricane Rafael, and another, on December 4.
Although the authorities have celebrated the recovery of the SEN after these events as a success and have praised the speed with which it has been achieved — particularly in the last failure, when restoration was achieved in one day —, these disconnections — and other partial ones, such as those suffered by Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo — reveal the fragility of the system and anticipate the possibility of new collapses. In addition, they leave consequences in networks and generating plants.
As if things weren’t bad enough, then came nature
“A skinny dog is all fleas,” says a well-known saying and the situation of the SEN in 2024 seems to prove it right. At one of its worst moments, when it was suffering the first total disconnection of the year, Hurricane Oscar attacked the eastern end of Cuba with unexpected fury and, in addition to victims, floods and damage to homes, left more than 60,000 families in Guantanamo in the dark.
According to the minister of the sector during the last parliamentary sessions, it took 15 days to restore the service and deal with the damage to the electricity infrastructure. However, these effects would pale in comparison to the destruction caused, two weeks later, by Hurricane Rafael. More than a million customers were left without electricity in western Cuba, not counting the general blackout in the country due to a new collapse of the system.
More than 600 transformers, almost 2,500 poles and 6 high-tension towers were damaged by the hurricane in Havana, Mayabeque and, above all, Artemisa, where recovery work had to be extended for about a month with brigades from all over the country.
To top it off, two strong earthquakes on November 10 left more than 14,000 customers without electricity in Granma and Santiago de Cuba, although this effect, at least, did not last long.
A new (and controversial) decree
Faced with the sustained decrease in generation and the parallel increase in demand, the government first implemented an increase in electricity rates for those who exceed 500 kW/h in the month — a measure that, Marrero acknowledged, has not had “the desired impact” — and at the end of November published a controversial decree for the different economic actors.
The regulation, in force before the end of the year, establishes the obligation for existing state and private actors considered “large consumers,” and for new businesses and investments, to produce part of their electricity consumption through renewable sources. In addition, it regulates the operation of the Energy Councils, and opens the door to the declaration by the authorities of “electrical contingencies,” an aspect that has caused the greatest controversy.
According to the decree, this regimen can be declared when “it is necessary to affect the electric service in a planned and sustained manner for more than 72 hours” due to the generation deficit. The above has been interpreted by many as the “legalization” of continuous blackouts for three or more days in the country, something that the government has denied.
However, apart from the measures and sanctions listed, doubts and opacity persist regarding the practical application of the regulation.
Unión Eléctrica niega que vaya a planificar un “apagón total” por 72 horas
Looking to the sun and 2025
Faced with the current panorama — for which they largely blame the U.S. sanctions —, the Cuban authorities have presented a plan for the recovery of the SEN with a focus on renewable energies. Even though their contribution is barely 4% of the generation, an ambitious program for the installation of solar parks promises to change the meager figure.
Along with a planned recovery in the generator sets and thermoelectric plants, the government plan contemplates the installation of 92 photovoltaic solar parks until 2028, which would contribute in total about 2,000 MW, as announced last March. Some of them are being built against the clock in different areas of the island and by next year 55 must be synchronized, which is expected to inject more than 1,000 MW into the system, according to official projections.
This is expected despite the fact that the minister of the sector acknowledged days ago the existence of a delay in the arrival of components for this project, which he also attributed to the effects of the embargo/blockade. Even with this obstacle (which will presumably be accentuated with Donald Trump in the White House), the arrival of 30,000 photovoltaic systems with storage and other investments to reduce blackouts was announced for 2025, at least in theory.
Cuba pretende instalar mil megawatts de energía fotovoltaica en un par de años
Author
OnCuba Staff
