The Antonio Guiteras Thermoelectric Power Plant, the largest power generation facility in Cuba, went offline this Wednesday due to a leak in the economizer (ECO).
The news was announced on the official Facebook profile of the thermoelectric plant with a brief message: "CTE Antonio Guiteras is out of service due to a leak in the ECO. Stay informed through official channels. It is currently in the cooling process."
A new way out of an endless chain
The breakdown this Wednesday is the latest in a long series of unscheduled outages that Guiteras has experienced throughout 2026.
Just five days ago, the plant had just come back online due to a leak in a steam tempering line.
On that occasion, the technical deputy director Elmer García Romero stated that "in a few hours the work of restoring the damaged pipeline would be completed," and that same night, at 21:19, the unit synchronized again with the National Electroenergetic System (SEN) and managed to generate around 180 MW.
Before that outage, the plant had returned to the system on October 4 after welding work, metallographic checks, and hydraulic tests on the high-temperature reheater, generating over 100 MW.
The pattern has been repeating for months: the "Guiteras" briefly returns to the grid, contributes a fraction of its capacity, and then falls back again.
By early July, there had already been at least 17 unscheduled outages this year, which was compounded by an extreme incident on the 18th of that month, when it stayed connected for only 26 minutes before failing again.
The economizer: the Achilles' heel of the plant
The component that failed again this Wednesday—the economizer—is a heat exchanger made up of tube banks that utilizes the residual heat from combustion gases to preheat the boiler's feed water.
With 38 years of continuous operation and no capital maintenance since 2010, the ECO has been responsible for approximately half of the unplanned outages at "Guiteras" during 2026.
Between January and the end of May, the malfunctions in that component caused 293 hours of downtime and contributed to at least 12 outages.
On September 19, during the eighth general blackout of the SEN this year, the plant experienced another malfunction specifically in the economizer.
A comprehensive repair of the component would require the replacement of more than 500 tubes and the execution of between 1,000 and 1,200 welding seams, with an estimated downtime of at least 180 days, something that the Cuban electrical system cannot afford due to the structural generation deficit.
A system on the brink of collapse
The departure of the "Guiteras" —which under normal conditions can supply up to 316 MW to the system— exacerbates an already critical situation.
This Wednesday, the UNE reported that for peak demand hours, availability is estimated at only 1,026 MW compared to a demand of 2,910 MW, resulting in a deficit of 1,884 MW and a projected impact of 1,914 MW.
The structural causes — the aging of the thermal power plant fleet and lack of investment — are compounded by a shortage of imported fuel.
The General Director of Electricity at the Ministry of Energy and Mines, Lázaro Guerra Hernández, acknowledged that more than 1,200 MW of installed capacity cannot be utilized due to a lack of fuel, which further widens the gap between supply and demand.
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