A video of Cubans cooking with parabolic solar cookers made in China has gone viral on social media amid the severe energy crisis facing the island.
A private store in Havana sells these devices for $135 as a survival alternative on the island, where power outages exceed 19 hours daily in the capital and reach up to 22 hours in some interior provinces.
The establishment, Doble J Comercial, located at Galiano 310, between Neptuno and San Miguel, in Central Havana, promotes the device —a huge concave reflector measuring one and a half meters in diameter— as "the new technology" for cooking without electricity, gas, or charcoal, according to the independent website 14yMedio.
"We positioned the kitchen well so that it perfectly reflects the sun onto the pan," explains a female voice in the promotional video shared on social media, where the cooking of two sausages is shown in just two minutes.
However, the actual cooking times are quite different from that demonstration: according to specialized sources, chopped vegetables take between 45 and 90 minutes, rice or legumes between 90 and 150 minutes, and meats between two and three hours.
The comments on social media reflect skepticism and bitter humor in equal measure.
"You need to wear a welding mask because you’re going to go blind," warned one user, while another pointed out that "the cook's skin burns before the sausages."
Others pointed to the most obvious problem with the device: "At night or on rainy days, you're left eating slices of air."
The owner of the store, Rafael Pavón, a former Customs employee for the state company ITH S.A. and founder of the micro, small, and medium-sized enterprise in 2023, defends the product: "They are real and they work, as long as there is good sunlight."
The phenomenon is not new on the island. In February of this year, a woman in Trinidad, Sancti Spíritus, rescued a solar oven brought to Cuba during the Special Period of the 90s to cook red beans during power outages, claiming that the appliance "works like it did on the first day" after 36 years.
The crisis that drives Cubans to these solutions is devastating. Cuba faces an electricity generation deficit of approximately 2,040 megawatts against a demand of between 3,000 and 3,250 MW in 2026.
On May 14, a massive blackout affected areas from Ciego de Ávila to Guantánamo—seven out of the 15 provinces—and the Electric Union projected that 61% of the island would be without electricity during peak nighttime hours.
The collapse has structural roots exacerbated by the capture of Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026, which cut off the Venezuelan supply of between 25,000 and 35,000 barrels of crude oil daily, while Mexico also suspended its shipments that same month, depriving Cuba of 44% of its oil imports.
Even Díaz-Canel implicitly acknowledged the setback on March 28, when he called for guaranteeing "cooking materials, from charcoal to firewood" during the National Defense Day in Havana del Este — the same phrase he had previously stated in May 2025 in Villa Clara, now transformed into explicit public policy.
A social media user ironically summarized the state of the situation: "Soon we’ll start using smoke signals to communicate."
The magnitude of the emergency led the UN to launch an action plan in March amounting to 94.1 million dollars for Cuba, with a warning from its resident coordinator, Francisco Pichón: "We fear a rapid deterioration, with the potential loss of lives."
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