The Minister of Energy and Mines of Cuba, Vicente de la O Levy, responded this Monday to the new total disconnection of the National Electric System (SEN) with a “message of resilience” posted on his social media: “We are moving forward in the restoration of our Electric System, overcoming all kinds of difficulties, under a total energy blockade, with great effort and commitment.”
The "optimistic" statement from the head of the department comes at one of the worst times of the year for the Cuban electrical system: while the country was trying to recover from the sixth total blackout of the year—recorded on Sunday at 10:43 PM—a frequency fluctuation once again brought down the national electrical system this Monday afternoon, leaving millions of Cubans in the dark once more.
This type of oscillation occurs when the balance between electricity generation and demand is abruptly disrupted. In a weakened system with limited reserves, frequency variation can trigger the protection mechanisms of units and lines, resulting in successive disconnections that can lead to total collapse.
The Electric Union (UNE) attributed this new disconnection to .
"In the process of restoring the SEN, the existing weather events caused impacts on the grid, directly affecting the generating units that were online," the state-owned company stated in a release posted on Facebook.
The recovery prior to the new collapse was extremely fragile. Havana woke up this Monday with barely 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.
In that context of minimal recovery, the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant had begun a cold start at 10:17 in the morning, with the expectation of synchronizing with the SEN by nightfall.
The electrical crisis also impacted telecommunications. The Cuban Telecommunications Company (ETECSA) announced disruptions to cellular phone service nationwide due to the failure of the generator that supports one of its main centers, affecting the area codes 52, 509, 598, and 599.
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