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While millions of Cubans endure power outages of up to 20 hours a day, the regime launched on Thursday a youth expedition that will travel through communities and businesses across all provinces in the country to explain the so-called energy transition.
The flag-raising ceremony, held on April 9, brought together young people from the electrical, geological, mining, and petroleum sectors with the First Secretary of the Union of Young Communists (UJC), Meyvis Estévez Echevarría, and the Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy.
The initiative, named under the slogan "With Its Own Light", aims to enhance knowledge about renewable sources, energy savings, and the rational use of natural resources, and will run until April 23.
The Ministry of Energy and Mines summarized the spirit of the expedition in a post on X: "Today, a group of young people from our sectors denounce the damage caused by the blockade to our people, just before heading across Cuba to engage with communities and organizations about the actions we are taking to progress amid difficulties."
The phrase encapsulates the official narrative: blaming the U.S. embargo for a crisis that has roots in decades of disinvestment and mismanagement of the Cuban electric system.
The expedition is launched at the worst possible time for the regime's credibility regarding energy matters.
So far in 2026, Cuba has experienced three total national electrical collapses, the most prolonged lasting 29 hours and 29 minutes on March 16. On April 6, the shutdown of the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant due to a boiler malfunction caused the deficit to surge to 1,845 MW, with only 1,205 MW available against a demand of 3,020 MW.
In Camagüey, reports indicated "practically 20 hours a day" without electricity during the first week of April; in Matanzas, there were cycles of two hours of power followed by 36 hours without it. The Deputy Minister of Energy, Argelio Jesús Abad Vigoa, described the situation on March 21 as the most complex scenario the National Energy System has faced.
Far from producing solutions, the regime has responded to the crisis with a propaganda offensive. One day before the banner-raising of the expedition, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz and Miguel Díaz-Canel launched the "Community Youth Network," which includes the activation of "digital wasp nests" to combat "fake news".
The accumulated desperation from the blackouts has overflowed into the streets: cacerolazos have erupted in Havana, Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo and other cities across the country. Meanwhile, only nine out of 168 Cuban municipalities had developed local energy strategies, highlighting the extent of institutional neglect in the face of the crisis.
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