Several areas of Havana experienced a blackout on Friday afternoon due to a malfunction at the Cuatro Caminos Substation, located in the Cotorro municipality.
The Electric Company of the capital reported on social media that the power outage was due to a break in the high-power transformer of the substation, which affected the Popular Councils of Cuatro Caminos, Santa Amelia, and La Portada, as well as surrounding areas of those territories.
The executives of the state-owned company assured that they were working on replacing the damaged equipment and would remain on-site "until the electricity service was restored."
However, dozens of Cubans, in disbelief, doubted the promise to restore their electricity when several circuits had not received power all day and others were affected even though it wasn't their turn according to the blackout schedule.
"They don't believe a word of what they say; here in Guanabacoa, in block 2, there's a huge on-and-off situation with the electricity. They will see that in the end, they are really going to cut off the power to the country. God forbid, because we are already neck-deep in misfortune," commented one person.
Another person reported that in the same municipality, a transformer exploded at 4:00 PM and had not been repaired.
The concern over the high energy deficit and the fear of a repeat of a massive blackout in Cuba led the Electric Company to deny that this situation could happen again.
It is FALSE that there will be a total disconnection of SEN in Cuba. The impacts will continue according to the planning in each province and the current generation deficit," they said on Facebook.
A netizen pointed out that this statement from the company demonstrated that "the outages are a completely planned phenomenon" by the regime.
The criticisms came quickly. Hundreds of frustrated Cubans criticized the announcement when there are provinces on the Island that go more than 12 hours without power.
"You all try to ensure that the SEN doesn’t collapse, because if it does, the little credibility you may still have will go down the drain. As you try to appear efficient with these types of publications and shut down all of Cuba whenever it suits you, the people in the provinces are left dry," wrote someone.
The energy crisis in Cuba has worsened in recent days, with prolonged blackouts and an electricity generation deficit exceeding 1,600 megawatts (MW).
According to the official report from the Electric Union (UNE) on Friday, April 4th, service was disrupted for 24 hours on Thursday.
Among the causes of the deficit are the breakdowns of two units at the Nuevitas and Felton thermoelectric plants, as well as the scheduled maintenance of five other generating units at the Santa Cruz, Cienfuegos, and Renté power plants.
Furthermore, 69 distributed generation plants are out of service due to a lack of fuel, affecting 501 MW, and an additional 139 MW are unavailable due to a shortage of lubricants.
For the nighttime peak, a demand of 3,450 MW is expected and a availability of 1,840 MW, which would imply a deficit of 1,610 MW and an estimated impact of 1,680 MW
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