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Cuba is facing a day of blackouts this Monday that promises to be one of the most severe of the year, after the thermoelectric plant (CTE) Antonio Guiteras went offline from the National Electroenergy System at 3:00 AM due to a boiler puncture, worsening a crisis that had already left the country without electricity for nearly the entire day.
At 6:00 am, the availability of the SEN was only 1,100 MW against a demand of 2,340 MW, with 1,265 MW already affected. The estimated impact for noon is 1,400, according to the report from Unión Eléctrica (UNE).
The forecast for the nighttime peak hours is alarming: the UNE projects a availability of only 1,205 MW against a maximum demand of 3,020 MW, resulting in a deficit of 1,815 MW and an impact of 1,845 MW.
The only planned contributions to offset the deficit are unit 6 of the Nuevitas CTE with 85 MW and unit 5 of Energas Jaruco with 20 MW, figures that are insufficient to replace the capacity lost with the shutdown of Guiteras.
In addition to the Guiteras, three units from the CTE Felton, Antonio Maceo, and Diez de Octubre are currently out of service, while five blocks from the CTE Mariel, Renté, and Nuevitas are under maintenance.
The limitations in thermal generation amount to an additional 266 MW out of service.
On Sunday, which coincided with Easter, the service was affected for 24 hours and the maximum impact due to a generation capacity deficit was 1,740 MW at 8:30 PM, according to UNE.
In Havana, the situation was similarly critical.
The Electric Company reported that on Sunday, the electrical service was interrupted for 14 hours and 42 minutes, with a maximum impact of 273 MW at 8:30 PM, and that "it was not possible to restore the service due to a deficit."
At the close of the Havana report, the six blocks and 38 MW of emergency power, amounting to a total of 261 MW, remained out of service with an expected restoration forecast for Monday morning, a scenario that the new breakdown of the Guiteras makes virtually unfeasible.
The Matanzas plant, inaugurated in 1988 with a nominal capacity of 250 MW, accounts for between 20% and 25% of the country's thermal generation and has a history of failures that dramatically accelerated in 2026.
This is at least its fifth outage of the year, following breakdowns on February 2, February 9, March 4, and March 16, when a leak in its boiler triggered the total collapse of the SEN for 29 hours and 29 minutes.
The causes are structural: more than 36 years of operation, severe aging, inadequate maintenance, and chronic shortages of spare parts, problems that the Cuban regime has not addressed in decades of disinvestment in the energy sector.
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