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The Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, Roberto Morales Ojeda, visited the Antonio Guiteras Thermoelectric Power Plant in Matanzas this Saturday to oversee the maintenance work on the largest power generation unit in the country, which is currently out of the National Electroenergy System (SEN) due to a new breakdown.
The plant's shutdown marks the ninth failure recorded at Guiteras so far in 2026, occurring just five days after it was resynchronized with the SEN on May 9, following a 90-hour repair that included nearly 300 corrective actions.
Accompanied by Mario Sabines Lorenzo, the first secretary of the PCC in Matanzas, and Jorge Luis Broche Lorenzo, a member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, Morales Ojeda toured the facilities and engaged with management and workers of the plant amid an increasingly critical energy situation for the country, as reported by the official newspaper Girón.
The General Director of Guiteras, Engineer Román Pérez Castañeda, explained that operations are maintained continuously for 24 hours, divided into two shifts, while adjustments are made to the regenerative air heaters and maintenance is performed on all the burners.
"We are working in 24-hour shifts, divided into two teams, in order not to lose a single second in restoring the contribution of the block to the system," the executive stated.
According to Pérez Castañeda, the most optimistic scenario predicted restarting the unit between Sunday afternoon and Monday morning, as long as the hydraulic and radiographic tests did not detect any new faults, an uncertainty that has become recurrent regarding the thermoelectric plant.
During the exchange, Morales Ojeda praised the workers with a phrase presented by the official press as a political acknowledgment: “You inspire.”
The leader also connected the recovery of the plant with the ideological discourse of the regime and the centenary of the dictator Fidel Castro (1926-2016).
"We must continue to make progress in the province, and you are an example. That is the best tribute we can pay to the Commander in Chief in the year of his centenary," he declared.
The words of support contrast sharply with the depth of the energy crisis facing Cuba. This Sunday, Unión Eléctrica reported an availability of only 1,070 MW against a demand of 2,545 MW in the morning hours, while for peak hours, it forecasted a deficit of 2,053 MW, figures that predict outages of more than 20 hours in several provinces across the country.
The latest breakdown of the Guiteras once again highlights the structural deterioration of the Cuban electric system, which relies on aging thermoelectric plants that are subjected to constant repairs, failing to ensure stability or reduce the prolonged power outages that affect millions of Cubans on a daily basis.
The structural background of the crisis is devastating. La Guiteras, inaugurated in 1988, has accumulated more than 15 years without major maintenance when technical standards recommend a deep intervention every seven to eight years.
Pérez Castañeda himself has acknowledged that the plant requires at least 180 days of shutdown for maintenance, but that "the situation in the country still does not allow for it."
The technical crisis is compounded by the collapse of fuel supply. The Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, admitted last Wednesday that Cuba has "absolutely no fuel, no diesel, only associated gas," after a Russian donation of 100,000 tons of crude processed at the Cienfuegos refinery ran out in early May without the regime securing an alternative supply.
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