All Cuba without electricity
As reported by The New York Times on Friday (10/18/24): “Cuba’s power grid failed and the entire nation plunged into darkness Friday, less than a day after the government stressed the need to paralyze the economy to save electricity in the face of major gasoline shortages and large-scale, regular outages.” What follows is an article written by staff writers of Cuba’s website La Joven Cuba regarding Cuba’s growing and very grave energy emergency. Hours after it appeared the power went out across the entire nation.
Manuel Marrero on the energy emergency
The news is that the Cuban Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, appeared on national radio and television alongside Alfredo López Valdés, general director of the Electric Union, and Edrey Rocha González, general director of CUPET, to report on the energy emergency that the country is going through.
Their appearance, which took place on the orders of Cuban President Miguel Díaz Canel, and which had to be postponed on several occasions due to alleged “technical failures” that caused alarm and ridicule on the networks, took place in the midst of a context of growing popular discontent due to constant blackouts and fuel shortages, and on a day in which a record 1,678 megavolts was forecast, which caused hours-long blackouts in almost half the country.
The prime minister explained that [Cuba] is facing a “complex” situation due to the combination of three main factors: the deterioration of the energy infrastructure, the lack of fuel, and the increase in electricity demand, which have come together to cause a significant increase in blackouts in recent weeks. He also emphasized that the Cuban government has taken measures to protect the residential sector, prioritizing the distribution of electricity to homes even at the cost of paralyzing non-essential economic activities and state institutions.
The state of the energy infrastructure, particularly the Felton and Guiteras thermoelectric plants, is one of the critical problems affecting electricity generation. Alfredo López Valdés pointed out that both plants are operating below their capacity and need urgent maintenance to recover their generation potential. However, these repairs could only be carried out in the coming months, which means that the crisis will continue in the short term.
In other news, Edrey Rocha González, director of CUPET, confirmed that the problems with fuel distribution have worsened due to the weather conditions that prevented ships from docking in Matanzas Bay. These ships contain fuel oil and diesel necessary for the generation of electricity. It is expected that once the weather conditions improve, the ships will be able to unload the fuel, which would presumably allow a direct impact on electricity generation and could reduce the current effects.
One of the highlights of their TV appearance was the aforementioned lack of liquefied gas, which has led to an increase in electricity demand of approximately 250 megawatts, as many families were forced to use electricity for cooking. Rocha reported that the distribution of liquefied gas will begin again throughout the country, which should also contribute to a decrease in electricity consumption.
As for actions to be taken, Marrero indicated that the government has decided to implement “exceptional measures” to reduce electricity consumption. Although he did not give details or dates, he said that they would include the disconnection of state institutions and dispensable work centers, and establishing consumption regulation plans for the non-state sector. For his part, the director of the Cuban Electric Union emphasized that it is not just about saving, but about consuming electricity in an efficient and responsible manner.
Shortly after the appearance, journalist Lázaro Manuel Alonso reported on his social networks that “classes are suspended this Friday throughout the country due to the energy situation. They will restart next Monday.”
During his appearance, Marrero pointed out that the government will not limit the right of the population to acquire household appliances such as air conditioners, but urged them to use them efficiently, suggesting keeping the temperature at 24 degrees to avoid excessive consumption. He also indicated that many of the high consumers in the non-state sector, who currently pay subsidized rates, will have to regulate and adjust their consumption according to the country’s energy availability.
Regarding energy infrastructure, the Prime Minister referred to the need to gradually eliminate dependence on fossil fuels and increase generation through renewable energy sources, such as solar photovoltaics. López Valdés recalled that work is currently underway to install 31 solar parks, which are expected to provide up to 600 additional megawatts by the summer of 2025. However, the full recovery of the country’s thermal generation capacity could take up to two and a half years.
Regarding solar panels for the residential sector, it was explained that most of the models that were being marketed required being connected to the electrical system, which means that they do not operate autonomously during blackouts. This limitation has made solar panels not an attractive option for most households that can afford them, since the only advantage is a saving on the electricity bill, which is not a sufficient incentive, considering that electricity is subsidized and such equipment is sold in foreign currency at high prices. However, both Marrero and López Valdés indicated that alternatives are being sought to import other models that offer storage capacity and can operate independently, thus providing a viable energy option to deal with power outages, other than plants dependent on fossil fuels.
In addition, Marrero highlighted that the government has developed an action plan approved by the Political Bureau, whose main objective is to recover the generation of thermoelectric plants that use national crude oil, maximize generation with own resources, and increase the participation of renewable sources in the energy matrix. In addition, it was announced that the government plans to improve transmission and distribution lines, and reinforce the availability of distribution transformers to ensure a more stable service.
This means that the energy crisis in Cuba is coming to be considered a national emergency. However, it is not an isolated or recent phenomenon. The structural deterioration of the electrical system has been worsening over the last decades, due to factors that include unilateral coercive measures by the United States that affect the purchase of equipment and fuel, and the investment strategy that has neglected the energy industry compared to other sectors such as tourism.
The fall of the European socialist bloc in the 1990s and the subsequent economic crisis marked the beginning of a critical period for the Cuban energy industry, exacerbated by the lack of access to spare parts for Soviet equipment, and the impossibility of maintaining capital investments in the electrical infrastructure.
However, in previous years Cuba achieved a diversification of its electrical capacities that allowed for greater stability, even reaching coverage of almost 100% of the population by 2016. However, this development was based on an infrastructure dependent on crude and refined fossil fuels imported from Venezuela, which translated into a structural vulnerability to economic crises and international political ups and downs.
On this crisis and the effects it has on Cuban society, La Joven Cuba has published several analyses:
As explained in the article “Cartografía de los apagones” (Cartography of Blackouts), by Daniel de la Osa Camacho, the Cuban electrical system is mainly based on thermoelectric plants fueled by domestic oil, which has a high sulfur content that generates incrustations in the boilers and accelerates the wear of the infrastructure. This wear makes maintenance more frequent and expensive, without the financial or technological capacity to guarantee an effective recovery.
In the text “Sailing against the current,” by journalist Igor Guilarte Fong, it is highlighted that the lack of investments, the precariousness of maintenance, and the inability to foresee lasting solutions have resulted in an electrical system incapable of satisfying the needs of the population and the productive sector, a problem that the official discourse tries to alleviate without much success.
The economist Omar Everleny Pérez Villanueva underlined in “Power outages, a major impediment to economic development,” that the crisis of the electrical system has compromised the industrial development of the country and seriously affected the productive sector, it has also hit the private sector, forcing the closure of businesses such as restaurants and bars due to the lack of energy, and directly impacting the conservation of food and the provision of basic services.
Our opinion is that although the government is trying to confront—in a belated manner—a problem that has been giving signs for several years, the solutions seem to be delayed. According to reports, although the peak could decrease after the distribution of fuel, the blackouts will continue to affect the Cuban population in a sustained manner for the rest of the year.
Electricity generation is an increasingly recurrent problem in underdeveloped countries whose infrastructures have not been able to adapt quickly to the technological and climatic changes that mark the world today. Cuba is no exception, although on the Island the problem is particularly serious, not only because of the number of hours without electricity suffered by the population—mainly those who live outside the capital—but because the situation has already become chronic and the solutions foreseen are not immediate, nor have they always been reported in detail, nor on time.
Although the unilateral coercive measures of the United States have a direct impact on the crisis, the country’s senior management has not managed to efficiently manage alliances with countries such as Russia and China, large producers of technology for investment in the area of electricity. Nor has it reported on the current status of the agreements with Venezuela, and why they are not guaranteeing the same amount of oil as before.
On this occasion, the supposedly unforeseen technical failures, the poor management of the time to effectively communicate the information, the apparent improvisation of the appearance and the announcement of a plan not detailed, once again showed the poor management of communication in a crisis scenario, which can lead to further eroding the credibility of the government in the eyes of the citizens.
It is crucial that effective actions be adopted to confront the crisis and that once and for all the Cuban authorities fulfill their promises of improvement. The appearances year after year to explain the situation and affirm that “they are working to resolve it” are not well received by a good part of the population, tired and worn out by the difficulty of sustaining life in Cuba with a minimum of well-being.
