MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Massive blackout hits eastern Cuba

Cuba's electricity production deficit leads to repeated blackouts

A massive blackout hit eastern Cuba Sunday, affecting millions of people across five provinces: Las Tunas, Granma, Holguín, Santiago de Cuba, and Guantánamo.

The outage, which started at 7.37 pm local time, was caused by a failure in the 220-kilovolt Nuevitas-Tunas high-voltage line. The failure led to an automatic trip that activated protection systems, causing a total shutdown of the electrical grid in the region.

Cuba's Ministry of Energy and Mines and the Cuban Electric Union (UNE) worked to restore power, with some areas, like Las Tunas and Holguín, seeing power return by 10.02 pm. However, full recovery in the affected provinces was ongoing.

The outage led to widespread frustration and social media complaints from residents who were left in the dark and heat. The lack of immediate official communication from authorities also added to public discontent.

This incident is part of a larger, ongoing energy crisis in Cuba, characterized by frequent and prolonged blackouts. The crisis is attributed to a deteriorating infrastructure, among other factors.

The country's power grid relies on outdated thermoelectric plants, with poor maintenance, coupled with a limited supply of fossil fuels needed to run them. In addition, there is a significant deficit between electricity generation capacity and national demand, it was explained.

The situation has become so severe that in some eastern provinces, power cuts can last for over 20 hours a day. While the government is investing in solar energy projects, these new plants have not been enough to compensate for the imbalance between supply and demand.