A large fire broke out at Unit 1 of the Ernesto Guevara de la Serna Thermal Power Plant, located in Santa Cruz del Norte, Mayabeque province, as reported by the Unión Eléctrica (UNE) through its official channels.
"The fire department is on-site working to extinguish the blaze. It will be expanded," specified the UNE on its Facebook profile.
According to the report published by the state media Cubadebate, the fire started at 6:55 a.m., and the fire department arrived at the scene to work on extinguishing it. The unit was immediately taken offline.
According to the UNE report for this Friday, at 06:00 hours, the availability of the National Electroenergetic System (SEN) was 740 MW compared to a demand of 2,260 MW, resulting in an impact of 1,540 MW on the service.
The projections for the peak demand night hours are even more alarming. According to the UNE, a demand of 2,900 MW is expected, with availability remaining at the same 740 MW. This implies a deficit of 2,160 MW and a forecasted impact of 2,190 MW.
The official report also indicated that several units were out of service. In addition to the unit affected by the fire, the report noted that unit 2 of CTE Santa Cruz, the unit from CTE Guiteras in Matanzas, unit 2 of CTE Felton in Holguín, and units 3 and 6 of CTE Renté in Santiago de Cuba were also out of service. There were three more units undergoing maintenance in different plants across the country.
On Thursday, the service was affected for 24 hours, with a maximum impact of 2,094 MW at 7:30 PM, "higher than planned," as acknowledged by UNE itself, due to limitations in units 3 and 4 of the CTE Cienfuegos and in unit 2 of the CTE Santa Cruz.
The Santa Cruz plant has a history of recurring breakdowns throughout 2026: unit 1 went offline in February due to a malfunction, in April and May due to failures in the turbine regulatory system. In July, it was unit 2 that failed because of a pore in the economizer, just an hour and a half after a unit from the CTE Cienfuegos also went down, in what was described as a domino effect among the thermoelectric plants.
The CTE Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, completed in 1991 with Soviet technology, has three generating units and an installed capacity of 295 MW. It operates using national crude oil, which avoids imports valued at approximately 400,000 dollars per day.
Cuba has experienced eight total disconnections from the National Electric System (SEN) so far in 2026, with the most recent occurring on September 18. With an availability of only 740 MW at the start of the day and a projected deficit of 2,190 MW for the night on this Friday, millions of Cubans are facing power outages that in the previous days had already exceeded 20 continuous hours.
UPDATE NOTE: Subsequently, the Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, reported that the fire had been controlled and that no injuries had been reported. As of now, the causes of the incident and the extent of the damage suffered by the facility have not yet been specified.
Filed under: