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The Antonio Guiteras Thermoelectric Power Plant left the National Electric Energy System once again this Wednesday due to a failure in the economizer of its boiler, and its general director, Román Pérez Castañeda, announced that the repair will involve replacing more than 100 defective welding seams identified as the recurring source of the failures, as stated in an interview with Cuban television news.
The malfunction began when a weld bead gave way and damaged three additional tubes, for a total of four affected tubes. "A weld bead fails and damages three more tubes, so between yesterday and today we are going to resolve the issue of replacing those four damaged tubes," explained Pérez Castañeda.
Once that immediate damage is addressed, the plant will carry out a larger-scale intervention. "This time, we will remove all the weld beads that were executed during the period I’m referring to, which is a little over 100 weld beads," the director specified, acknowledging that these faulty joints "have been the root of this entire failure so far."
To undertake the work, a team from the National Electric Services Company was mobilized with a number of welders "significantly increased" compared to previous interventions. The strategy does not involve replacing the entire pipes, but rather cutting and redoing the compromised seams. The director estimated that the entire process could be completed in five days starting this Wednesday.
This is the outage number 16 that the Guiteras has accumulated so far this year. Last Sunday, the plant went offline due to a leak in the boiler, just three days after returning to service on June 12. Between January and May 29, it had already accumulated 293 hours out of service solely due to defects in the economizer.
In prior repairs this year, a total of 544 weld seams were inspected, 172 were repaired, and thickness measurements were taken at over 850 points, replacing all pipes with very low thickness. The new intervention aims to proactively eliminate the seams that still pose a risk.
The deterioration of the plant has structural roots: the boiler has been in operation for over 38 years and has not received major maintenance since 2010. Pérez Castañeda himself admitted in May that at least 180 days of downtime are needed for a comprehensive review, but that "the situation in the country still does not allow it." The Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, promised that maintenance would take place by the end of 2025, postponed it in December citing a "temporary issue," and then announced it again in April 2026 without a specific date.
While the Guiteras remains out of service, the electrical system is operating at the brink of collapse. According to the Unión Eléctrica, at 6:00 AM this Wednesday, the availability was 950 MW against a demand of 2,570 MW, with 1,622 MW affected. For the peak hours, a deficit of 2,050 MW is projected, with 106 distributed generation plants out of service due to lack of fuel.
Cubans report this Wednesday just two hours of electricity in many areas of the country, with outages in eastern provinces exceeding 48 consecutive hours.
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