The Cuban capital is facing an avalanche of failures in its electrical network: almost at the end of July, Havana is recording an average daily damage of about 25 single-phase transformers, although on certain days that number has exceeded 60 units in a single day, as acknowledged by the state-owned Canal Caribe.
The Electric Company of Havana launched an intensive operation to replace the inoperable devices and rehabilitate infrastructure in the distribution networks, with teams of specialized linemen arriving from both the capital and various provinces.
Experts identified the main cause of the surge in failures as the so-called "load coincidence factor." After prolonged hours of blackout, when the supply is restored, all consumers connect their devices at the same time, resulting in an explosive demand that overloads and destroys the transformers.
"In addition to the high temperatures that lead to increased consumption, there are also the long hours of power outages. Once the electricity service is restored, there is a phenomenon of coinciding loads that has caused excessive consumption in these transformers, which in turn has led to an increase in their damage," warned one of the specialists quoted by the state media.
The chain failures further complicate the response. According to another technician interviewed: "They affect not just one transformer, but several, and the process of locating the fault has to 'begin' first, followed by assessing the magnitude, and finally the resolution. And all of that, when you add it up, is a considerable amount of time."
The Popular Council of Párraga, in Arroyo Naranjo, was identified as one of the areas with the longest-lasting impact. The lineworkers described grueling days: “For us, this is every day; we start at 8 in the morning and finish at 2 or 3 in the morning,” recounted one of the brigade workers.
The extent of the structural deterioration was highlighted by Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy, who revealed that in a sample of 1,500 transformers inspected in Havana, 755 showed overloads exceeding 7% above the recommended level.
National production is insufficient to meet the replacement demand. Between the plants in Havana, Santa Clara, and Manzanillo, only about 70 units are produced daily, and higher-powered equipment is not manufactured in Cuba. In June, the Electric Union acknowledged that there was no physical availability of transformer parts in any province of the country.
This distribution crisis is part of the broader collapse of the National Electric System. On July 23, the deficit reached 2,315 MW, nearing the historical record of 2,341 MW set on the 8th of the same month. Cuba has experienced at least five total system blackouts so far in 2026, and Havana has suffered cuts of up to 20 and 24 hours daily.
The Ministry of Energy and Mines deployed 15 teams of linemen from other provinces to reinforce the work in the capital, along with 32 additional workers from Holguín. Some workers described their conditions bluntly: "I'm providing support for others to have electricity, even though I don’t have it at home. I leave my house without electricity and come back to the same situation. But well, what can we do? We have to support the people," said one of the workers.
In light of the repeated power outages and the intense wave of protests featuring pots and pans —even with a national call— in the capital of the island, especially on the eve of July 26, there have been a couple of days with «unusual» lighting. “This is just a façade and a temporary light truce against a people that is organizing,” asserted activist Leonardo Romero Negrín.
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