Cuba: state electricity company expects blackouts to rise to 34%

The state company Unión Eléctrica (UNE) of Cuba It foresees an impact on almost 34% of the island for this Sunday, which closes a week with the highest rates reported since the end of last October.

Power supply cuts are common on the island due to the economic crisis it has suffered in recent years, which impacts the electrical service, one of the sectors most affected by this situation.

The UNE calculates for the time of highest consumption in the afternoon-night of this day an electrical generation capacity of 2,100 megawatts (MW) and a maximum demand of 3,100 MW.

This represents a deficit – the difference between supply and demand – of 1,000 MW and an impact – what will actually be disconnected – of 1,070 MW in the so-called “peak hours”.

On this day, the company dependent on the Ministry of Energy and Mines estimates that the impact on daytime hours will reach a maximum of 600 MW, and this means the occurrence of blackouts in almost the 22% of the island.

Since the beginning of the week, blackouts began to increase and the day before – for the second consecutive day – the service was affected due to a capacity deficit during the 24 hours in around the 30% of the island’s territory during the evening.

On this date, two generating units are out of service due to a breakdown and two others are undergoing maintenance, as indicated by the UNE in its daily report on the situation of the National Electroenergy System (SEN).

Blackouts have become a common problem in the Caribbean country, where outages in some locations have reached up to ten hours a day.

The Cuban electrical network has a complex situation reflected in the failures and breakages of its terrestrial thermoelectric plants, almost all of which are obsolete, the lack of investments and maintenance, but also due to a fuel deficit.

In the last five years, the Cuban Government has rented up to seven floating power plants to the Turkish company Karpowership to alleviate the lack of generation capacity, a quick but temporary, polluting and expensive solution.

Seven of the eight onshore plants are more than 40 years old, when the average age of these infrastructures is 30.

The maintenance of these infrastructures has also been deficient, due to a lack of resources that the Cuban Government attributes to US economic sanctions.

Frequent power outages have been a cause of social unrest in the country and one of the triggers for the protests of the last two years, including those of July 11, 2021, the largest in decades.