Cuba commemorates this Saturday the 158th anniversary of the Grito de Yara amidst an electrical crisis that cannot be measured solely by the circuits without service during the early morning hours. Between September 3 and October 2, 23 out of 28 days with comparable national closure data exceeded 2,000 megawatts (MW) of maximum actual impact, according to an analysis of reports by the Unión Eléctrica (UNE) conducted by CiberCuba. Meanwhile, in various localities, households spend a significant part of the day—and at times, entire days—without electricity.
On October 10, disruptions were documented in Havana, Villa Clara, Holguín, and Sancti Spíritus. At midnight, the Havana Electric Company reported 258 MW of impact and 97 distribution circuits out of service. At 6:00 a.m., it reported 174 MW and 68 affected circuits. The decrease between the two reports reflects the situation at two specific moments; it does not indicate how many blackouts occurred during those six hours or how many hours each household accumulated without electricity.
The CiberCuba Power Outage Observatory, which gathers communications from electric companies and other official sources, also recorded 139 affected power circuits in Villa Clara. In Holguín, the interruption of the Iberia 1 circuit lasted for 25 hours and 11 minutes in the assessed outage; the Juan Vicente circuit had been out for 22 hours and 5 minutes. In Sancti Spíritus, malfunctions were reported in areas of Iguará and there were outages in Fomento and Taguasco.
What the reports of a dawn do not tell
The 258 MW reported in Havana at midnight is a provincial figure for that moment, not the total number of blackouts in Cuba. Similarly, the number of affected circuits does not, by itself, indicate the number of people without electricity, the total duration of their outages, or the interruptions that may occur afterward. The announced restorations also do not guarantee that the supply will be maintained for the rest of the day.
The methodology of the Observatory warns that institutional figures may be preliminary, incomplete, or revised. Their records compile the available reports, but do not represent a continuous and thorough monitoring of all the households on the island. Therefore, the actual impact on the population may be broader than what an isolated communication reflects, although those data also do not allow for calculating the exact percentage of the country that remains in darkness for most of the time.
Extreme blackouts have been recurring for weeks
The issue is not an isolated incident from October 10. The analysis by CiberCuba published on October 4 examined 30 days, from September 3 to October 2, and found comparable figures of actual maximum impact in 28 of those days. In 23 instances, the demand reduced through blackouts exceeded 2,000 MW. The average of those daily peaks was around 2,093 MW.
That average does not mean there were 2,093 MW disconnected around the clock: it measures the maximum reported each day. However, it does document the recurrence of significant disruptions. The days of September 18 and 19 were not included in the comparison because the National Electric Power System (SEN) experienced a total disconnection and underwent a recovery process for its interconnection. These were not days of electrical normalcy.
The reports from the UNE have attributed the ongoing limitations to a combination of thermal plant malfunctions, units taken offline for maintenance, and a lack of fuel for distributed generation units. Solar parks generate energy during the day, but their contribution does not continuously replace the generation that is lacking at night.
From the blackouts of 2025 to towns with barely two hours of electricity in 2026
The duration of power outages was already extreme in 2025. During a visit to Granma in June of that year, Miguel Díaz-Canel himself acknowledged that families in Río Cauto had endured more than 20 hours without electricity. In December, the director of the Electric Company of Guantánamo admitted to outages of up to 20 hours in some circuits and challenges in meeting the rotation schedules.
The situation continued to severely impact daily life in 2026. A report by EFE published this week described how Puerto Esperanza, in Pinar del Río, was receiving barely two hours of electricity per day. The fishermen in the town explained that the lack of refrigeration forces them to sell their catches immediately or risk losing them.
The impact of the power outages goes beyond households. The state telecommunications company ETECSA acknowledged in September that prolonged blackouts left communities without connectivity and that, during the national SEN outage on the 18th, more than 80% of its radio bases were out of service. The power cuts also hinder water pumping, food preservation, and the operation of production facilities.
The anniversary commemorates the uprising led by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes in La Demajagua on October 10, 1868, marking the beginning of the Ten Years' War. In the 2026 commemoration, provincial reports continue to record restorations and interruptions, while places like Puerto Esperanza face periods where the time with electricity is much less than the time without it.
Related videos:
Filed under: