The National Electric System (SEN) of Cuba is once again facing a critical day this Saturday, with a maximum estimated impact of 1,560 MW during peak hours, according to the report issued by the Electric Union (UNE).
Starting at 5:04 a.m. on Friday, reports began to emerge regarding power outages, which continued throughout the early morning hours of Saturday.
The UNE confirmed that the highest actual impact on Friday was 1,604 MW at 8:20 p.m., coinciding with the peak demand, and exceeding the 1,475 MW initially projected for that time.
In today's report, the state company explained that this deviation was due to a demand exceeding estimates, which exacerbated the anticipated impacts.
This Saturday, at 7:00 a.m., the availability of the National Electric System (SEN) was 1,810 MW, while the demand reached 2,260 MW, resulting in a shortfall of 473 MW. By noon, the deficit is expected to increase to 750 MW.
Among the main causes of the crisis are the outage of Unit 1 at the Santa Cruz CTE and Unit 2 at Felton, as well as ongoing maintenance work on other units in Cienfuegos, Renté, and Santa Cruz. The thermal limitations contribute an additional deficit of 391 MW.
The situation worsens with the lack of fuel, which keeps 81 distributed generation plants out of service, with a combined capacity of 553 MW, in addition to another 107 MW unavailable due to a shortage of lubricants.
Although the new photovoltaic solar parks generated 895 MWh yesterday, this production is insufficient to counteract the serious imbalance between generation and demand.
The UNE warns that if current conditions persist, service interruptions will continue to affect large sectors of the population throughout the day, in an environment still marked by energy instability and public discontent.
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