A Cuban woman shared a video on Thursday on the Facebook page Azucar Cuba in which she angrily denounces that her neighborhood has been without electricity for nearly a week, and poses a direct question to the regime: "Can someone explain to me if my neighborhood has been cut off from electricity or if they are selling my power?"
According to reports, since Monday, July 13, at five in the morning, there has been no electricity in their area.
On Monday, there was no power at all, on Tuesday the so-called "zen" —distributed generation system— collapsed and there was also no electricity, and on Wednesday, the supply was restored for just one hour and twenty minutes, an insufficient amount of time to even charge his personal generator. "An hour and twenty minutes that didn’t even give me time to charge the ecoflor," he stated.
The woman openly questions the distribution of circuits and points to an inequality that many Cubans perceive as deliberate: the prioritization of electrical supply towards the tourism sector while residential neighborhoods remain in the dark.
"This circuit is meant to prioritize more what they are currently selling," he noted, before concluding with a warning: "They are testing the patience of the people. I'll leave it at that."
The video accumulated over 35,900 views, 2,179 reactions, and 277 comments in just a few hours, reflecting the widespread frustration with a crisis that shows no signs of abating.
That perception of inequity is grounded in the reality of the Cuban electrical system, which maintains prioritized circuits for hotels and vital objectives while residential areas suffer widespread blackouts.
Tourist hotels have their own generators that ensure a continuous electricity supply, and during events like the "Start of Summer 2K26" in Varadero, tourists enjoyed uninterrupted power while the rest of the country experienced blackouts lasting between 20 and 35 hours.
This Thursday, the electricity shortage in Cuba reached 1,764 MW with a forecasted deficit of 2,240 MW during peak nighttime hours, which is equivalent to 69% of the country's total demand.
In the first 16 days of July alone, the National Electroenergy System (SEN) collapsed on five occasions: on July 6, 8, 10, and 14, with the one on July 8 marking the highest recorded historical deficit of 2,341 MW, when there were only 935 MW available against a demand of 3,100 MW.
In Havana, outages exceed 35 consecutive hours daily; in provinces like Matanzas, up to 87 hours without electricity have been recorded. The structural causes include 106 distributed generation plants out of service due to a lack of fuel, obsolete thermoelectric infrastructure, and the suspension of oil shipments from Venezuela and Mexico.
Social discontent is escalating uncontrollably. In June 2026, a historic record of 107 protests was recorded, with pot-banging protests in Alamar, La Hata, and neighborhoods of Santiago de Cuba. The regime's response has been minimal: Miguel Díaz-Canel requested on July 10 to "better organize the blackouts" without announcing any measures to increase power generation, while the Electric Union published system restorations that citizens themselves debunked in real-time from their darkened homes.
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