The Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric power plant in Matanzas went offline from the National Electric System on Friday night due to a water leak in the economizer, and authorities estimate that the repairs will take between 72 and 96 hours, according to a report from Canal Caribe signed by journalist Bernardo Espinosa from Matanzas.
At the time of the malfunction, the plant was supposedly supplying 204 megawatts to the system with stable parameters, before operators detected variations that confirmed the leak and forced the unexpected disconnection of the unit.
What the official report presented in a technical and defensive tone is contradicted by the data itself: between January 1 and May 29, 2026, the Guiteras has gone out of the system 12 times, which accounts for 50% of the outages due to boiler failures, accumulating 293 hours out of service solely due to defects in the economizer.
Espinosa and his team followed the usual script of the official media: emphasizing the dedication of the workers, the quality protocols, and the repair timelines, without ever questioning the structural incapacity of the system to keep the plant in continuous operation.
The executives of the plant insisted in front of the cameras that the previous repairs were flawless. "None of the breakdowns occurred in the same location; they have all been in different places, although it may be that the cause was the same, but it was not because the work was not done properly. The quality of the work is what it should be," they stated.
La Guiteras had been reconnected on May 28 after four days out of service, and it lasted less than 36 hours online before the new breakdown, a cycle that Cubans know by heart and that state media presents each time as if it were for the first time.
The engineer Román Pérez Castañeda, general director of the plant, acknowledged to Canal Caribe that a thorough repair of the economizer would take almost a month, and that under the current conditions of extremely low generation, that is impossible. "A final job, done properly, requires a bit more time," he admitted.
El economizador está formado por 136 elementos, cada uno compuesto por tres tubos, y each new breakdown occurs in a different place del componente, lo que evidencia un deterioro generalizado que las reparaciones parciales no pueden contener.
The plant was inaugurated in 1988 and has been in operation for over 38 years. Its last major maintenance took place in 2010, and since 2002, its boiler has burned more than 10 million tons of national crude oil.
A truly comprehensive maintenance would require at least 180 days of downtime and more than 520 planned interventions pending, as acknowledged by Pérez Castañeda himself.
The record deficit of 2,174 MW reported on May 14, which left 70% of the country without electricity, was triggered precisely by the shutdown of Guiteras, the same plant that Canal Caribe repeatedly presents as the imminent solution to the energy crisis.
The authorities of the Electric Union assured that the repair work would begin this Sunday, in double shifts without interruption, with personnel from the power plant itself, from the UAB of Santa Cruz del Norte, and from Havana.
"We have all the human and material resources necessary for the execution of this work," they declared, in the same optimistic tone that accompanies each new breakdown of a plant that has been at the limit of its useful life for years.
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