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The Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric power plant, the largest single unit of electricity generation in Cuba, synchronized with the National Electric System (SEN) at 11:06 p.m. on Sunday, reaching 200 MW. However, its late reactivation was not enough to prevent a night of widespread blackouts across the island.
According to the informative note from the Unión Eléctrica published this Monday, the highest disruption on Sunday was 2,119 MW at 10:00 PM, "surpassing the planned level due to the failure to bring online the unit from the CTE Guiteras and unit 2 from the CTE Santa Cruz."
At 06:00 this Monday, the situation remained critical: the availability of the SEN was only 1,150 MW against a demand of 2,720 MW, with 1,520 MW affected at that time.
The outlook for this Monday evening is likewise grim. The Electric Union forecasts a capacity of 1,150 MW against a peak demand of 3,200 MW, resulting in a deficit of 2,050 MW and an estimated impact of 2,080 MW during peak hours.
This Monday morning also brought a new breakdown: unit 4 of the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes CTE went offline at 08:52 hours "in emergency free mode due to a puncture in the condenser," according to the state-run company itself.
Active outages include Unit 1 of the CTE Ernesto Guevara De La Serna, Unit 2 of the CTE Lidio Ramón Pérez, and Units 3 and 5 of the CTE Antonio Maceo, while another three units are under maintenance. The limitations in thermal generation amount to 516 MW out of service.
Román Pérez Castañeda, general director of CTE Antonio Guiteras, informed Girón that the plant synchronized at 11:06 p.m. this Sunday and has already reached 200 MW. During the outage, more than 200 maintenance activities were carried out, including measures to reduce risks from cyclones and heavy rains.
Among the repaired failures, a faulty tube in the high-temperature cooler, two faulty tubes in the economizer, and a sealing problem in the oven floor stand out. The director acknowledged that "the breakdown in the economizer prevented water circulation, as all of it was leaking from the damaged area, which made the processes more time-consuming."
The breakdown that preceded the synchronization on Sunday was the ninth failure of the Guiteras in 2026.
The plant had gone offline from the SEN last Wednesday at 04:58 due to a leak in the boiler, just five days after being synchronized on May 9 following approximately 90 hours of repairs and about 300 corrective actions.
This Sunday, Cuba's 54 photovoltaic solar parks generated 3,365 MWh, peaking at 501 MW at noon, but their production is strictly daytime and does not cover the nighttime peak, which is when the greatest deficits occur.
The electricity crisis of May 2026 is the most severe of the year. On the 13th, a record deficit of 2,153 MW was recorded at 9:30 PM, and the following day, following the failure of the Guiteras, availability collapsed to 636 MW, resulting in power outages of up to 20 hours daily in Havana and cuts from Ciego de Ávila to Guantánamo.
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