The Antonio Guiteras Thermoelectric Power Plant (CTE), the largest generating plant in Cuba, went offline again from the National Electric System (SEN) this Saturday at 20:11, according to a report by the Electric Union (UNE) on its Facebook page. The official cause: "vibrations in turbine."
The failure is of a mechanical nature and differs from the boiler and economizer breakdowns that had caused the plant's previous outages in October, suggesting that the problems are spreading to other systems within the facility.
This new disconnection comes just days after a series of consecutive failures. On October 14, the Guiteras was taken out of the National Electric System due to a leak in the economizer of the boiler, with additional damage to the low-temperature reheater. Technicians replaced 11 segments of tubing and conducted hydraulic and pneumatic tests to bring it back into service.
The reconnection on October 20 lasted only five minutes: the plant synchronized at 10:06 PM and fell again at 10:11 PM, with a cause "pending identification" according to the UNE. It did not return to the SEN until 4:36 AM the following day and did so generating about 150 MW, well below its nominal capacity of 316 MW.
The sequence of failures of the Guiteras in October also includes an outage on October 9 due to a leak in a steam tempering line, and another on September 28 from a breach in the front wall of the burners.
The impact on the national electrical system is severe. At 06:00 this Saturday, before the new nighttime disconnection, the UNE was already reporting only 915 MW of available generation against a demand of 2,104 MW, with 1,177 MW affected at that time. For peak hours, a demand of 2,850 MW was forecasted, with a maximum estimated impact of 1,865 MW.
The power outages on October 24 hit several provinces hard. In Holguín, some circuits experienced interruptions ranging from 14 hours 19 minutes to 18 hours 22 minutes by 09:25. In Havana, 109 affected circuits were reported along with 268 MW of impact at 03:45, a figure that remained at 227 MW by 06:00. Sancti Spíritus recorded 61 MW affected due to generation deficits.
La Guiteras is not the only plant facing issues: the Antonio Maceo CTE in Santiago de Cuba had units three and six out of service due to a malfunction, and unit five was under maintenance.
The Matanzas plant has recorded at least 17 unplanned shutdowns by July 2026, and between January and May, it logged 293 hours of downtime solely due to problems with the economizer. It has been in continuous operation for 38 years without significant capital maintenance, which explains the accumulation of failures in critical components.
On October 1, the unexpected departure of the Guiteras —while the CTE Felton was facing its own issues— caused a complete disconnection of the SEN, marking the ninth general blackout of the year in Cuba.
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