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Electric circuits in Matanzas have accumulated more than 40 hours of continuous blackout this Thursday as technicians from the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant ramp up their efforts to synchronize the plant with the National Electric System ahead of Mother's Day, next Sunday, May 10th.
The engineer Jorge Gómez Sánchez, deputy production director of Guiteras, declared to Radio 26 that "after completing more than seventy percent of the corrective actions included in the maintenance, progress is being made promisingly on the boiler work."
Gómez Sánchez specified that the welding work on the boiler is nearly complete, with only the radiographic and metallographic inspections of the welds remaining, before proceeding to the hydraulic and pneumatic tests that certify the quality of the work.
"If everything goes as it has so far, the Guiteras will be synchronized before Mother's Day and will exceed 200 megawatts," stated the specialist, who added that time is currently being used for cleaning the boiler.
The plant went out of service on Tuesday, May 5 at 9:12 AM due to a new failure in its boiler, resulting in a loss of 140 MW. This marks its eighth outage from the system in 2026, a plant that has never undergone major maintenance in its over 36 years of operation since its inauguration in 1988.
The departure of the Guiteras triggered blackouts across Cuba to critical levels. This Thursday, the National Electric System started the day with an availability of only 1,370 MW against a demand of 2,850 MW, with 1,495 MW affected as of six in the morning according to the Electric Union.
Wednesday was one of the worst days of the year: the maximum impact reached 1,874 MW at 9:40 PM, with the service interrupted for 24 hours. For the night peak this Thursday, the Electric Union forecasts a deficit of 1,850 MW and an estimated impact of 1,880 MW, dangerously approaching the record of 1,945 MW recorded on April 1.
Matanzas is officially the province most affected by power outages in the country, with an average demand of 238 MW and the highest maximum load-able capacity of all provinces: 174 MW distributed across 123 circuits.
Kenny Cruz González, technical deputy director of the Electric Company of Matanzas, confirmed to TV Yumurí: "It catches my attention because on several occasions circuits have been out for 40 hours, and when one checks the circuits in other provinces, they are not at that maximum outage level; they don't have that number of hours."
The paradox is that Matanzas is home to the Guiteras, yet its generation is fed into the national system without directly benefiting the province.
The backdrop of the crisis is the scarcity of fuel. The only significant shipment of 2026 was that of the Russian tanker Anatoli Kolodkin, which docked in Matanzas on March 31 with about 730,000 barrels donated by Moscow, reserves that are now depleted.
Miguel Díaz-Canel himself admitted on May 2nd to international solidarity delegates: "That oil is already running out these days and we do not know when more fuel will arrive in Cuba."
A second Russian ship, the Universal, carrying approximately 270,000 barrels of diesel, is drifting in the Atlantic about 1,600 km from Cuba with no confirmed destination, partly due to the pressure of U.S. sanctions, as blackouts in Cuba continue to worsen with no signs of relief in the near future.
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