The Electric Company of Santiago de Cuba announced on Monday that it will attempt to guarantee at least five hours of electricity per day as part of a provisional strategy, although it warned that this duration could be less due to the limited availability of the National Electric System (SEN).
In the statement, the company explained that the service will be distributed in different time blocks throughout the day, always dependent on generation capacity.
The strategy aims for “each circuit to have at least 5 to 6 hours of service throughout the day,” the report stated.
"When the deficit exceeds the burden on the circuits with service, even those with vital points will be affected to prevent prolonging the interruption time in other circuits," he added.
The new rotation "will be used to provide electric service to the population, while improving the complex energy situation the country is currently facing," stated the announcement, without specifying when it will be implemented or the duration, highlighting a deepening of the crisis.
Furthermore, they acknowledged that, given the current circumstances, it is impossible to adhere to the block rotation that had been functioning until now, which will increase uncertainty and inconvenience for the population.
The statement from the Electric Company confirms a recent announcement by Beatriz Johnson Urrutia, the first secretary of the Communist Party (PCC) in Santiago de Cuba, which warned that the provincial government would only guarantee electric service for three to four hours a day.
Johnson stated that the blackouts are due to the tense situation of the National Electric Power System (SEN) and urged the people of Santiago to have "empathy."
After a bleak Sunday in Cuba, during which the electricity service was disrupted for 24 hours due to a generation capacity deficit, the people start Monday facing a forecast of more blackouts, in a crisis that seems endless.
According to the report from the Electric Union (UNE), the peak impact on Sunday was 1,348 MW (slightly less than the forecast of 1,421 MW) at 6:30 PM.
The service remained disrupted throughout the night. At peak demand, it affected 134 MW due to the outages caused by Hurricane Rafael in the electrical networks (40 MW in Pinar del Río and 94 MW in Artemisa).
For this Monday, power generation deficits are expected to impact 478 MW in the morning, 750 MW in the early afternoon, and 1,399 MW during peak hours.
The energy crisis in Cuba, worsened in recent years, continues to impact the population with prolonged blackouts, a lack of fuel for cooking, and a climate of uncertainty in one of the country's most affected provinces, due to weather events and even recent earthquakes.
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