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The Minister of Energy and Mines of Cuba, Vicente de la O Levy, acknowledged this Wednesday in front of the press that some provinces experience much longer and more chaotic blackouts than others, but he refused to identify them and ruled out any immediate solutions, citing that the country lacks resources for the necessary investments.
In a press conference of a "special" nature, De la O Levy addressed the public perception that certain regions manage to rotate power outages every six or eight hours, while others go for full days without a clear pattern.
"I won’t mention provinces; they are well known," said the official, avoiding naming the most affected areas.
The minister explained that the differences are due to technical factors: each province has a different number of circuits, varying demand, and a different number of circuits that cannot be turned off.
He cited as an example that in some provinces, hospitals have four electric power supply inputs, which allows the power company to rotate those inputs, keeping the health center powered while affecting all the population connected to those circuits. "And it is doing so independently of the rotation of the municipalities," he explained.
In other provinces, that flexibility does not exist and would require investments that the regime acknowledges it cannot afford.
"We would return to the same point: energy is one and the same. The total value of generation and demand is singular. Therefore, distribution becomes extremely difficult," concluded De la O Levy.
The background of this impossibility is the most severe fuel crisis in years. According to the minister himself, since December 2025, Cuba has not received a single ship with fuel until just a few weeks ago. "This happened almost four months after no fuel ship entered Cuba," he emphasized.
The only relief was a donation from Russia: 100,000 tons of crude oil that arrived on March 31 at the port of Matanzas, were processed at the Camilo Cienfuegos Refinery, and began to be distributed between April 17 and April 19.
That fuel allowed for a temporary improvement —even several days without blackouts in Havana— but it ran out at the beginning of May, just when temperatures rise and demand increases.
"Today we are experiencing higher temperatures, and only the electrical system is operating with thermoelectric plants, Energás, and solar photovoltaic parks," the minister admitted.
The projected deficit for the peak nighttime hours on Wednesday exceeded 2,020 MW, with an availability of just 1,245 MW against a demand of 3,200 MW, indicating that approximately 61% of the Cuban territory could be left without electricity simultaneously.
To this situation is added the shutdown of the Felton thermoelectric plant in Holguín, which the minister justified due to leaks in the boiler and a broken bearing in one of the regenerative air heaters. "If it continued operating this way, the entire unit would end up damaged," warned De la O Levy.
Matanzas has been identified as the most affected province, with circuits that have accumulated over forty continuous hours without electricity, while the minister only said that "the most hit provinces are known," without providing concrete solutions or timelines.
The National Electric Power System has experienced seven total collapses in the last 18 months, the most serious on March 16, 2026, when the entire country was left in the dark for 29 hours and 29 minutes.
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