According to official forecasts, in Cuba there will be a simultaneous blackout in 33% of the island

Havana, October 26 (EFE).- Cuba’s state company Union Electrica (UNE) estimates that 32.5% of the island will be in blackout this Saturday, at the time of peak demand.

Although Cuba’s electricity system has been reconnected after almost five days of complete national blackout, its condition remains very uncertain and the average capacity remains around 30%.

Last week’s blackouts still left wide areas – mainly rural and in the east of the country – without the ability to meet demand.

UNE estimates that maximum power generation capacity on the day will be 2,080 megawatts (MW), while demand will reach 2,980 MW.

The deficit (the difference between supply and demand) will be 900 MW and the impact (which is actually curtailed preventively) will reach 970 MW in the so-called “peak time” in the evening.

The energy crisis of recent years in Cuba has worsened since late August and before the complete blackout, supply cuts were already at historic highs, with maximum impact rates between 41 and 51%.

The blackouts are primarily caused by fuel shortages – a result of a lack of foreign currency to import it – and frequent malfunctions in the country’s obsolete thermoelectric plants, over four decades of operation and long-term investment losses.

According to UNE, currently, seven out of 20 energy generation units at seven onshore thermoelectric plants in the country are out of service or undergoing maintenance. In addition, 24 distributed generation plants (electric motors) are out of service due to shortage of fuel (diesel and fuel oil).

In recent years, the Cuban government has chartered several floating power plants to alleviate the shortage of generating capacity, a quick but expensive, polluting solution that does not solve the structural problem of the national energy system.

Repeated outages in power supplies hurt Cuba’s economy – which according to official figures is set to shrink by 1.9% in 2023 – and fuel social unrest in a society already deeply affected by a four-year economic crisis. Has gone.

They have also launched anti-government protests, including on July 11, 2021 – the largest in decades – in Nuevitas and Havana in August and September 2022, and in Santiago de Cuba (East) and other areas on March 17. Are .