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The anger of the Habaneros over power outages lasting more than 12 hours overflowed on social media this Friday, with complaints that certain circuits remain on while entire neighborhoods have been without electricity for days.
The phrase that summarizes the public outrage is clear: "In the boss's block of the UNE, there is electricity."
According to the informative note from Unión Eléctrica published today, the National Electric System (SEN) started the day with a capacity of just 1,400 MW against a demand of 2,740 MW, leaving 1,340 MW without service. For the peak nighttime hours, the forecast is even gloomier: a deficit of 1,690 MW and an estimated impact of 1,720 MW.
The previous day, the service was interrupted for 24 hours in the capital, with a peak national impact of 1,876 MW at 8:40 PM.
The Electric Company of Havana acknowledged that "it was necessary to shut down circuits for emergency reasons with 105 MW" and that "it was not possible to restore the service."
What fuels passions the most is not only the magnitude of the cuts but also their unequal distribution.
In the Facebook group "Empresa Eléctrica de La Habana," comments are piling up with testimonies from neighborhoods engulfed in darkness while just a few blocks away there is light.
"The emergency circuits have been without power for three nights; today we have been without power since two in the afternoon and with no hope of it being restored. How long will this abuse continue? And let them stop lying that all the blocks are out, because from where I live, I can see that some blocks have lights on," wrote an internet user.
Another resident of Block 3 in Vedado was more direct: "Circuits that never turn off, and it's not that they have anything nearby that is essential. It’s a complete lack of respect, and no one from the State or anywhere else is here to address this."
From the corner of Tejas, another resident of Havana described their situation: "There’s electricity all around us, and we’ve been unable to sleep or start the engine for days now, just pure suffering."
An internet user was more explicit about the reasons: "There are circuits within the blocks that are either not turned off or are hardly affected, and they have nothing prioritized; someone just lives in one of them or they pay to keep the power on."
Not all the comments point to confrontation among neighbors. "Let's not focus on who has and who doesn't; no Cuban deserves to live this way. Let's not fight among ourselves, that's what they want. This has to stop now," another voice in the group urged.
The background of the crisis is structural. The Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant went offline on May 5 due to its eighth breakdown of the year in the boiler, resulting in a loss of 140 MW. Additionally, there are breakdowns at the Lidio Ramón Pérez CTE and Units 3 and 5 of the Antonio Maceo CTE, along with units under maintenance in Mariel, Renté, and Nuevitas.
Fuel is critically scarce. The only significant shipment of 2026 was from the Russian tanker Anatoli Kolodkin, which arrived with approximately 730,000 barrels donated by Moscow, reserves that are now depleted.
Díaz-Canel himself admitted on May 2: "This oil is running out these days, and we do not know when more fuel will arrive in Cuba." A second Russian ship is drifting in the Atlantic with no confirmed destination.
The new director of the UNE, Rubén Campos Olmo, appointed in March to replace Alfredo López Valdés, came directly from the management of the CTE Antonio Guiteras, the plant that has failed the most times this year.
The only short-term hope was offered by Jorge Gómez Sánchez, the production deputy director of Guiteras: "If everything goes as it has so far, Guiteras would be synchronized before Mother's Day and above 200 megawatts." This deadline expires on Sunday, May 10th.
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