The electrical authorities of Matanzas announced this Friday a measure that will cut off electricity to more residential areas of the province: the installation of disconnect switches in the protected circuits to physically separate hospitals from the rest of the neighborhoods, thus incorporating those areas into the rotation of power outages, according to the official newspaper Girón.
Alejandro Rodríguez Azpeitía, director of the Provincial Electric Company, explained that the plan involves installing 12 disconnectors in total, which would release 19 MW that are currently kept out of outages to protect the hospital centers.
"In this way, the distribution can be more equitable by minimizing the amount of MW consumed by those protected circuits and being able to distribute that energy with the aim of reducing the hours of impact on the rest of the circuits," stated the official.
In practice, the measure means that neighborhoods and non-essential areas that have until now benefited from being connected to the same circuit as a hospital will lose that advantage and will experience the same power outages as the rest of the population.
At the time of the announcement, four out of the 12 devices had already been installed: one at the University of Matanzas—covering the areas of Gelpi and Canímar—another for disaggregating Mocha, and two in the circuit of the Pediatric Hospital. Two more are yet to be installed in that same pediatric circuit, one at the Jovellanos hospital and another at the Cárdenas hospital.
"The decision is to gradually incorporate the new disconnected areas into the rotation; and at some point, they will enter the normal rotation of the circuits," clarified Rodríguez Azpeitía.
The state of the transformers further worsens the situation. On Tuesday, the province woke up with 162 damaged transformers —37 high voltage, 116 medium voltage, and nine low voltage— which amounts to 5,687 customers without service and over 15,000 people without electricity.
The deterioration rate is around three to four pieces of equipment per day, due to recent storms and the overload caused by portable charging devices and motorbikes.
The director himself illustrated it with an example: "An EcoFlow, which takes about 40 minutes to charge, consumes around 1,200 W. In any neighborhood, there are at least 10 of these, which adds up to 12 kW that you’re putting on a 50 kW transformer; that is to say, almost 20% of the load it was designed for, and that damages it."
The replacement of equipment is currently halted. "The transformer factory is virtually shut down because it lacks oil. We haven't received any equipment for about 15 days. In other words, they are getting damaged without replacement," the official acknowledged, adding that it is expected that dielectric oil will arrive in the coming days to resume production.
The oldest transformer that has not been replaced in the province dates back to July 23 and leaves 70 homes in a settlement in the industrial area of Matanzas without service; the second oldest that has not been addressed is from August 3.
This scenario unfolds while Cuba has experienced over 100 days of severe blackouts in various communities. The most extreme case documented in the province is the town of Cantel, in Cárdenas, which as of October 28 had accumulated 109 consecutive days without electricity or water, with no representative from the municipal government having presented to offer assistance.
On a national scale, the projected electrical deficit for this Friday is around 1,960 MW, with an availability of only 840 MW compared to a demand of 2,800 MW —the actual shortfall on Thursday was 2,004 MW— placing the crisis at what are considered critical levels.
Related videos:
Filed under: