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The energy crisis in Cuba is worsening again following the outage of one of the country’s main thermoelectric plants.
The Antonio Maceo Thermal Power Plant, known as Renté, located in Santiago de Cuba, went out of service on Tuesday night due to "problems in the automation," as confirmed by the Electric Union (UNE).
The incident occurred at 7:38 PM on Monday, when Unit 6 of Renté stopped generating power, adding to the already existing breakdowns in other key plants of the National Electric System (SEN), such as Felton (Unit 2), Santa Cruz (Unit 3), and Mariel (Unit 8).
Additionally, the UNE reported that throughout yesterday, the country experienced disruptions for 24 hours, with a maximum deficit of 1,703 megawatts (MW) at 7:40 PM.
The situation remains critical. At six in the morning, the availability of the SEN was only 1,554 MW, compared to a demand of 2,609 MW, which represents 1,068 MW affected by capacity deficit. During the peak nighttime hours, the deficit could exceed 1,700 MW, meaning that more than half of the country could again be left in the dark.
Although the commissioning of Unit 3 of Santa Cruz (45 MW) and Unit 3 of Renté (55 MW) is expected, generation remains insufficient.
This includes 67 distributed generation plants out of service due to a lack of fuel, representing 641 MW, and another 163 MW unavailable due to a lack of lubricant, for a total of 804 MW affected by this issue.
Meanwhile, the 32 new solar photovoltaic parks only managed to contribute 2,745 MWh of energy, a figure that barely alleviates the severe energy crisis the island is facing.
The Cuban population, living amidst daily blackouts and their exhausting consequences, faces another day marked by heat, darkness, and uncertainty, as the regime continues to fail to provide structural solutions to a collapsed electrical system.
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