Villa Clara now has 50 operational "solineras" and solar charging stations, facilities that, according to official statements, provide daily support to approximately 5,000 families affected by the electricity crisis.
Each of the facilities serves more than 100 people per day, according to Armando Hernández Pedroso, provincial director of the National Office for the Control of Rational Energy Use (Onure), quoted on Tuesday by the official newspaper Granma.
The solar-powered stations are distributed across the 13 municipalities of the province, with a priority given to the communities most affected by blackouts. Hernandez himself acknowledged in August that the main criterion for their location has been to reach areas experiencing interruptions of 20 hours or more each day.
At these points, food cooking and charging of cell phones and rechargeable lamps are offered for free. However, the charging of motorbikes, tricycles, and cars does incur a cost for users.
The province aims to reach nearly 60 establishments before the end of 2026, according to the director of Onure. At the end of August, there were 46, so in just two weeks, four new facilities have been added.
However, the growth of this network also highlights the role that private actors are playing amid the crisis. The first solinera in Villa Clara and the country was inaugurated on April 4 in the Virginia popular council, in Santa Clara, by the Local Development Project Gomate, which built the facility in nine days.
Most of these initiatives pertain to private micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises, although the official discourse incorporates them into the state policy responding to the energy crisis.
The contradiction became evident in July, when Susely Morfa González, the first secretary of the Communist Party in Villa Clara, celebrated on social media the opening of a private gas station operated by entrepreneur Leandro Prada Santana and credited the state Electric Company for the achievement.
The proliferation of solineras, a Cuban neologism that combines "solar" and "gas station," is occurring as a decentralized response to the worst energy crisis in Cuba in decades, exacerbated since January by the suspension of Venezuelan crude oil shipments and the cut in Mexican oil exports due to sanctions from the Trump administration.
Guantánamo has five operational facilities and plans to expand the network to 30 locations; meanwhile, Holguín opened its facility in June, although the rates caused controversy among users.
So far this year, Cuba has experienced several partial and total disconnections from the National Electric System.
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