The Antonio Guiteras Thermal Power Plant in Matanzas received an official recognition this Wednesday from the Municipal Committee of the Party, the Municipal Assembly of People's Power, and the Administration Council of Matanzas, as part of the events commemorating the 73rd anniversary of the assault on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes barracks, while accumulating at least 17 unscheduled outages from the National Electroenergetic System (SEN) so far in 2026.
The plant itself published the diploma on its X account this Thursday, stating that “the center's Factors receive recognition from the hands of the authorities of the Party and the Government.” The certificate, dated July 22, honors Guiteras “for fulfilling its duty during the commemorative phase” and includes a quote from Fidel Castro: “Moncada taught us to turn setbacks into victories; it was not the end, but the beginning.”
The irony of recognition is hard to ignore. On the same day that the diploma was awarded, the Electric Union (UNE) forecasted a deficit of 2,260 MW during peak night hours, with only 970 MW available against a demand of 3,200 MW. Lázaro Guerra Hernández, general director of Electricity at the Ministry of Energy and Mines, summarized it bluntly: "The operation of the system is very complicated."
La Guiteras no es una planta que atraviesa una mala racha puntual. Inaugurated in 1988 and without major maintenance since 2010, su caldera acumula más de 38 años de explotación y ha quemado más de 10 millones de toneladas de crudo nacional desde 2002. Los estándares técnicos internacionales recomiendan una revisión capital cada siete u ocho años; la planta lleva 16 sin una.
The director of the facility, Román Pérez Castañeda, acknowledged in May that the plant requires a major overhaul of at least 180 days, but admitted that "the situation in the country still does not allow for it." An executive even stated that with just 25 or 30 days of downtime, "we could eliminate a large percentage of the causes of these breakdowns."
The failure timeline in 2026 is striking. Between January and the end of May, the Guiteras went offline 12 times, accumulating 293 hours of downtime solely due to defects in the boiler economizer. On July 3rd, it went offline for the 17th time this year due to a leak in the same component. On July 18th, it was connected to the system for barely 26 minutes before going offline again due to a leak in the boiler.
This is not the first award that the plant has received amidst the collapse. In April, the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC) awarded it for the fifth time the distinction of "National Vanguard" when it had already experienced seven outages from the SEN that year. In March, its director was promoted despite the collapse on the 16th of that month, which left 68% of Cuba without electricity for almost 30 hours.
The pattern is repeating with precision: diplomas and awards while the most important plant in the Cuban electrical system suffers breakdowns that impact millions of people. Cuba is on the brink of an electrical collapse, with at least five total system blackouts recorded so far in 2026 and a historic deficit of 2,341 MW noted on July 8.
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