The total blackout in which Cuba is plunged this Friday is the culmination of the energy crisis that the country has suffered for years, an entrenched problem with a complex long-term solution, according to experts, which has serious economic and social consequences.
What is the cause of the breakdown?
The Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, in Matanzas (west), suffered a breakdown and had to leave the National Electric System (SEN). This unanticipated action unbalanced a system already under high stress and caused what the State Electric Union (UNE) called “zero national energy coverage.”
Are there any precedents?
Cuba had since the end of August experience prolonged daily power outages. This Thursday, the maximum deficit rate of 2024 was reached, after overcoming a simultaneous impact that paralyzed more than half of the country. This is the worst percentage in recent years, including deficit spikes earlier this year and in July and August 2021 and 2022.
In Havana, usually protected from the crisis due to its status as capital, the minimum daily power cuts were already six o’clock. In some municipalities, they have exceeded 20 hours per day for weeks.
What are the causes of this energy crisis?
Currently, the causes are, according to the UNE, two in number: shortage of imported fuel -due to lack of foreign exchange- to supply engines and power plants, and repeated breakdowns of their obsolete thermoelectric plants. Cuba, according to Minem data, consumes 8 million tons of fuel per year, of which it produces only three million.
The government has repeatedly emphasized that it spends more than $2 billion in this area each year. Allies such as Venezuela, Russia and Mexico provide the country with most of the energy it needs. The island currently has seven Soviet-made thermoelectric power plants – built more than four decades ago and affected by a chronic investment deficit – with a total of 20 production units (seven of them have been shut down in recent days due to breakdowns and maintenance).
Furthermore, in recent years, Cuba has leased several floating power plantsof which only five are currently operating. It is a quick solution, but expensive and polluting, which does not solve the structural problem.
Are there any precedents for total blackouts?
A similar situation occurred in September 2022 of “zero production” after Hurricane Ian, category three (out of five) on the Saffir-Simpsom scale, passed through the western end of the island. This caused a serious imbalance that plunged the entire country into darkness. Recovery took days.
How much would it cost to clean the SEN?
Experts agree that there are no simple solutions. Independent consultant Emilio Romero estimated the investment needed to revive Cuba’s electric energy system at $10 billion. The general director of electricity of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, Lázaro Guerra, assured in an interview with EFE last April that this amount was not “unreasonable”, but did not provide his own numbers.
What is the Cuban government’s plan?
The Cuban President, Miguel Díaz-Canel, for his part assured that “the country’s leaders” devote “absolute priority to the attention and solution of this very sensitive energy contingency for the nation” and stressed that “ “there will be no rest” until the flow of electricity is restored to the country.
In the long term, Cuba aspires to substantially reform the SEN, according to Guerra, and move towards “energy independence” based on “domestic crude oil, associated gas and renewable energy”, with a leading role for solar. The Cuban government is promoting a project to launch, with the help of China, 100 solar parks by 2031, with an installed capacity of 2,000 megawatts, which could reduce the energy deficit.
What are the economic consequences of the crisis?
Frequent power outages seriously harm the Cuban economywhich in 2023 contracted by 1.9% and is still below 2019 levels, partly due to the shutdown forced by power outages.
Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero announced Thursday, in an unusual television appearance, that from this Friday all non-essential activity would be paralyzed state institutions, ranging from ministers’ agendas to schools and most public sectors.
What is the social cost?
Power cuts paralyze the daily lives of Cubans: traffic lights do not workATMs, service centers (gas stations), electronic payment in stores, administrative offices, electric cookers in most homes and water pumps in towns and homes.
To name just a few examples. This fueled discontent in a context of serious economic crisis for more than four years, with lack of basic products (food, medicines, fuel), galloping inflation, growing dollarization and a wave of migration unprecedented in its volume and temporal scale.
Experts also consider power outages as catalysts for anti-government protests, including those of July 11, 2021 – the largest in decades – and those of March 17 in Santiago de Cuba (east) and other localities.
