65% of the electrical service has been restored in eastern Cuba following the passage of Melissa, authorities report

About 65% of the customers of the Electric Company in the eastern region of Cuba have already had their service restored, the entity reported this Sunday through its profile on Facebook, 12 days after the passage of the devastating hurricane Melissa through that area.

In the case of Holguín, still about 100,000 customers remained without electricity the day before, although 74% of the service has already been restored, and the province has been reconnected to the National Electroenergetic System (SEN).

On Friday, the Electric Company of Holguín reported that with the recovery of the service, the blackouts due to generation deficit have returned, with planned outages of 50 megawatts (MW) between 4:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., divided into two blocks of two hours each.

Despite this, the blackouts show no mercy, with a SEN facing another day at its limits and a deficit of 1380 MW for today's peak hours, which condemns millions of Cubans to remain in the dark.

According to the daily report from the Unión Eléctrica (UNE), Saturday was characterized by continuous blackouts throughout the 24 hours, with a peak impact of 1,404 MW at 7:00 PM.

Additionally, 405 MW remain offline in the provinces from Las Tunas to Guantánamo due to the damage caused by Hurricane Melissa.

The main incidents reported include breakdowns in units 3, 5, and 6 of the Antonio Maceo Thermoelectric Power Plant (CTE) in Renté, Santiago de Cuba, and in unit 2 of the Lidio Ramón Pérez CTE in Felton (Holguín).

In addition, there are scheduled maintenance at the Antonio Guiteras plants (Matanzas), unit 2 of the Ernesto Che Guevara in Santa Cruz del Norte (Mayabeque), and unit 4 of the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes (Cienfuegos).

Additionally, limitations persist due to a lack of fuel, which has left 72 distributed generation plants (568 MW) and an additional 96 MW offline because of a lack of lubricant, resulting in a total of 664 MW unavailable for that reason.

On its part, a note on the Facebook page of the Electric Company of Havana mentions that on Saturday, electricity service was disrupted in the capital for 18 hours and 30 minutes.

The maximum impact was 215MW at 6:30 PM. The service was restored at 2:09 AM this Sunday.

In the early morning, starting at 3:00 am, it was not necessary to affect the planned blocks, he indicated.