The Antonio Guiteras Thermal Power Plant, the largest thermal generation facility in Cuba, and whose breakdowns are one of the main causes of the blackouts that plague the country in 2026, announced a "Day of 100 Years with Fidel" organized by the Committee of the Union of Young Communists (UJC) and the Staff Department of the facility, with activities scheduled from July 13 to August 13 in the "August 13 Room" at 10 in the morning.
The official publication of the plant, featuring images of a worker in a "Fidel Among Us" t-shirt presenting the program in front of a television, starkly summarizes the regime's dynamics in this "Year of the Centenary": while Cubans endure blackouts of between 20 and 24 hours a day, the propaganda machinery operates uninterrupted.
The irony could hardly be greater. La Guiteras has accumulated 17 outages from the National Electroenergy System (SEN) so far in 2026, according to data from the energy monitoring dossier.
The most recent occurred on July 3, when a leak in the economizer of its boiler took the plant off the system for the seventeenth time this year, exacerbating a crisis that would soon lead to a total collapse.
On July 10, Cuba experienced its fourth total blackout of the year, leaving over 9 million people without electricity.
The regime's response to the collapse was revealing. On July 10, President Miguel Díaz-Canel urged local authorities to "better organize the blackouts", without providing any structural solution to the problem.
The plant has not received capital maintenance since 2010, and its pipes are over 40 years old. The definitive repair of the faulty economizer would require replacing about 500 tubes during a shutdown of at least 180 days, an operation that the authorities have been unable to carry out.
La Guiteras was inaugurated on March 19, 1988, by Fidel Castro himself, which adds another layer of contrast to the fact that it is precisely this facility that hosts events in his honor.
Built with Soviet technology, it was adapted after the fall of the bloc to use Cuban national crude, which is heavier and has a higher sulfur content.
The year 2026 was declared the "Year of the Centenary of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz" by Díaz-Canel on December 19, 2025, unanimously approved by parliament.
The campaign includes youth parades, international discussions, blood donations deemed "revolutionary" and events in workplaces across the country, such as the one currently taking place at Cuba's most malfunctioning thermoelectric plant.
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