The Electric Union of Cuba (UNE) reported on Thursday a significant deficit in electricity generation, estimating a supply of only 1,760 MW during peak hours, compared to a maximum demand of 3,020 MW.
In an information note published on the social network Facebook, UNE highlighted that this situation would result in a deficit of 1,260 MW and an impact of up to 1,330 MW nationwide.
At 07:00 hours today, the SEN reported a capacity of 1,730 MW against a demand of 2,450 MW, keeping 592 MW of capacity out of service. It is expected that during the afternoon, generation shortfalls will reach up to 950 MW.
He added that yesterday work was carried out to restore the Western area of the National Electric System (SEN), but the service was impacted by limited generation capacity throughout the day.
The highest recorded impact was 1,218 MW at 6:50 PM, primarily affecting the provinces from Matanzas to Guantánamo, and the interruptions continued until early morning.
In addition, Hurricane Rafael caused outages in electrical networks, resulting in a total of 175 MW affected during peak hours, distributed among Pinar del Río, Artemisa, Havana, and Mayabeque.
Regarding the plants, several units are out of service due to breakdowns, such as unit 5 of the Mariel power plant and unit 4 of the Cienfuegos power plant.
Additionally, there are limitations in thermal generation by 341 MW and fuel restrictions affecting 38 distributed generation plants, resulting in a total of 257 MW unavailable.
In the usual television broadcast, Lázaro Guerra Hernández, general director of Electricity at UNE, reported a lack of service—primarily in Artemisa and Pinar del Río—due to the damage caused by Rafael, while the blackouts in the rest of the provinces were attributed to a generation deficit.
Filed under: