The Electric Union (UNE) attributed this Monday's new and seventh total disconnection of the National Electric System (SEN) to "existing weather events," which occurred while the country was trying to recover from the sixth general blackout of the year that took place on Sunday.
The state-owned company published a statement on its official Facebook account with the following message: "In the process of restoring the SEN, the existing weather events caused disruptions to the network, directly affecting the generating units that were online. We continue to work intensely to reverse this situation and achieve the restoration of the system as soon as possible."
Minutes before that announcement, the government-affiliated journalist Lázaro Manuel Alonso had previewed the news: "A new disconnection of the National Electric System occurred a few minutes ago. Despite the progress made today, an oscillation caused the failure."
The collapse occurred when the system's recovery was only partial and extremely fragile. Havana had woken up this Monday with only 14% of the electrical supply restored: 87,480 customers and 78.51 MW, with 12 substations and 29 energized circuits, prioritizing 19 hospitals and two water pumps.
This seventh blackout occurs just a few hours after the sixth total blackout of the year, which was reported on Sunday at 10:43 PM, also confirmed by the UNE.
In that context of minimal recovery, the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant —the largest in the country, located in Matanzas— had begun a cold start at 10:17 in the morning with hopes of synchronizing to the SEN by nightfall.
The electrical crisis is also affecting telecommunications. The Telecommunications Company of Cuba (ETECSA) announced on Monday disruptions to mobile phone services nationwide following the breakdown of the generator that powers one of its main centers, impacting the prefixes 52, 509, 598, and 599.
With this new disconnection, millions of Cubans will face another night without electricity, and the restoration of the national electricity grid—already progressing slowly—will be further delayed, with the regime having yet to provide a specific recovery timeline.
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