Mass blackouts announced throughout Cuba

The Cuban Electrical Union (UNE) announced massive blackouts this Sunday on the island due to a generation deficit of almost a third of the demand during peak hours.

In an informative note, the entity said that "an availability of 2,095 MW and a maximum demand of 3,000 MW are estimated for peak hour, for a deficit of 905 MW, so if the expected conditions continue, aaffectation of 975 MW during this time".

Currently, unit 5 of the CTE Mariel, unit 3 of the CTE Habana and unit 2 of the CTE Felton are out of service due to a breakdown; and unit 8 of the Mariel CTE, the Guiteras CTE unit and unit 6 of the Nuevitas CTE are under maintenance, the UNE detailed.

Likewise, he said that 95 distributed generation plants and the Santiago de Cuba pond are out of service due to fuel, for a total of 735 MW. In addition, there are 14 plants with low coverage (110 MW).

This week there has been commotion in Cuba due to theincrease in blackouts, and reports indicate that people spend most of the day without electricity service.

The regime announced that the Antonio Guiteras Thermoelectric Power Plant (CTE) would be disconnected from the national electricity system starting on Wednesday, February 28, for 17 days for maintenance tasks.

The UNE also stopped the operations of theNuevitas thermoelectric, in Camagüey, to carry out "planned maintenance" that will last until April.

According to information provided by pro-government journalist Bernardo Espinosa on his Facebook account, "they are working in 24-hour shifts, seven days a week to accelerate the intervention. The projection is to restore 100 MW generation on that machine before at the end of April".

Later, several territories such as Villa Clara promised not to extend the blackouts more than 12 hours a day after the departure of the SEN from the Antonio Guiteras Thermoelectric Plant; But Cubans say they don't even have time to charge their cell phones between one blackout and the next.