Cuba closed this Sunday another day of massive blackouts with an electricity deficit that surged again, just a few days after the regime celebrated with great fanfare the 99th anniversary of the birth of the dictator Fidel Castro.
In its latest informative note, Unión Eléctrica (UNE) acknowledged that on Saturday, the actual demand reached 1,794 MW at 9:00 PM, a figure that exceeded by more than 100 megawatts the 1,675 MW that had been forecasted the day before.
According to UNE, the emergency shutdown of unit 3 at the Renté power plant and a surge in demand caused the disruption, although Cubans are no longer buying into the story.
The credibility of the state-owned company is in tatters. The constant fluctuation of figures —one day a deficit is promised, the next a larger one is acknowledged— has become a symbol of the chaos and lack of transparency that characterize the regime's energy management.
"And they continue with the demand exceeding what was planned. They are either overwhelmed or planning for the winter demand in Canada," protested a user in the comments on the Facebook post this Sunday.
Several commented on the brief "electric respite" from days ago and claimed that it had nothing to do with structural improvements in the National Electric System (SEN), but rather, the reduction in the deficit coincidentally aligned with the propaganda events for Castro's birthday, when the thermoelectric plants, as if by magic, seemed to come back to life to pay posthumous tribute to the dictator.
After the anniversary, reality returned with all its harshness: the current availability of the National Electric System is around 1,840 MW, compared to a demand of over 3,100, which is already causing prolonged blackouts since early morning.
For the night of this Sunday, the UNE forecast is a deficit of 1,645 MW and a total impact of 1,715 MW, figures that return the country to the critical levels of previous weeks.
Meanwhile, several key units—Felton, Mariel, Nuevitas, and Renté—remain out of service, along with more than 60 distributed generation plants shut down due to a lack of fuel.
All of this makes it clear that the collapse of the electrical system cannot be resolved with anniversaries or speeches, but rather with investments, efficiency, and a management model that the government of Miguel Díaz-Canel is not willing to change.
The conclusion is bitter but evident: the longest blackout is not that of the lights in homes, but that of the credibility of a regime unable to ignite anything more than its propaganda machinery.
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