The Antonio Guiteras, the country's main thermal power generator, is unable to stabilize its operation this Saturday following a series of failures reported in the last 48 hours.
The situation has led the Electric Union of Cuba (UNE) to warn on its social media about new and widespread blackouts, as public discontent grows and distrust in official figures intensifies.
The electrical collapse that Cuba is experiencing these days has a clear epicenter: the thermal power plant in Matanzas. The plant, regarded as the most efficient in the country, has suffered two consecutive outages within hours that have worsened an already unsustainable crisis.
Everything started on Friday morning when the unit unexpectedly went offline from the National Electric System (SEN) due to a leak in the condenser, as confirmed by sources from UNE.
The technicians began urgent work with the intention of returning it to the grid in less than 24 hours. However, the attempt to restart early Friday morning failed. A second malfunction prevented the restart, which forced the team to halt operations once again.
On Friday night, the energy impact reached 1,601 MW at 8:50 PM, far exceeding what was planned. The UNE report from this Saturday revealed that the plant remains out of service, without any guarantee of a specific return time.
Desolate panorama
The information note from the UNE warned that, at 7:00 AM this Saturday, the national availability was only 1,650 MW compared to a demand of 2,810 MW, resulting in a deficit of 1,183 MW.
For the peak night hour, a maximum demand of 3,400 MW is anticipated, while availability would barely reach 1,900 MW, resulting in a deficit of 1,500 MW and estimated impacts of 1,570 MW.
This situation is also influenced by breakdowns in other plants, such as unit 5 in Nuevitas and unit 2 in Felton, as well as maintenance work on five other units in the plants of Santa Cruz, Cienfuegos, and Renté.
This is in addition to 47 distributed generation plants that are out of service due to a lack of fuel, and another 150 MW that are inactive due to a lack of oil or technical problems in engines and the Melones platform. In total, 519 MW are inactive due to issues in this sector.
Promises, wear and tear, and social discontent
The official narrative insists that the solution is on the way. The leader Miguel Díaz-Canel acknowledged this week the "extreme seriousness" of the energy system and promised investments to restore capacity and modernize infrastructure.
The director of UNE, Alfredo López Valdés, stated that at least 1,000 MW will be restored before the end of the year, and the government has announced the purchase of mobile generation units.
However, the credibility of these promises is increasingly diminishing. On the streets, discontent is growing. The public has begun to openly question the daily reports from UNE, accusing them of concealing the true extent of the energy collapse.
Many families report experiencing blackouts lasting over 12 hours, while in some provinces in the central and eastern regions, there have been continuous outages of up to 20 hours.
The protests recorded in recent hours in Bayamo and Cienfuegos, with slogans like “We want food, not grinding!” and “Down with the darkness!”, reflect social exhaustion in the face of a prolonged crisis with no clear horizon for a solution.
Chronicle of an Announced Collapse
The case of the Guiteras is not new. So far this year, the plant has gone offline more than a dozen times due to technical issues ranging from boiler failures to breakdowns in pumps and condensers.
Without appropriate spare parts, with outdated technology and exhausted staff, each new repair attempt seems more like a patch than a structural solution.
The recent sequence of breakdowns confirms a pattern of progressive and irreversible deterioration, to which the authorities continue to respond with speeches and statistics that the public increasingly perceives as "official rhetoric."
Meanwhile, the Cuban regime continues to provide no concrete short-term solutions, beyond promises that, like the commitment to eliminate blackouts in three years, are generating more skepticism than hope.
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