The thermoelectric power plant «Lidio Ramón Pérez», located in Felton, Mayarí, Holguín, stopped its operations this Tuesday at 9:27 AM to undergo a scheduled maintenance of 21 days, as reported by Unión Eléctrica (UNE) on their social media.
The main task of the process will be the cleaning of the boiler, which had been accumulating grime for several weeks. This issue had reduced the generation of unit 1 to just 110 MW, less than half of its installed capacity of approximately 260 MW, after 84 consecutive days of operation.
The shutdown comes at the worst possible time for the Cuban electrical system. Unit 2 of the same plant remains out of service due to a malfunction, which leaves Felton completely inoperative for the next three weeks. The power station has a total installed capacity of about 510 MW across its two units.
The report from the UNE for this Tuesday outlines a critical situation: at six in the morning, the availability of the National Electric System (SEN) was only 1,080 MW against a demand of 2,180 MW, with 1,100 MW impacted at that moment.
For the nighttime peak demand period, the outlook is even more bleak: a supply of 970 MW against a demand of 2,900 MW, resulting in an estimated deficit of 1,950 MW and a projected impact of 1,960 MW.
On Monday, the maximum impact reached 1,764 MW at 6:50 PM, with outages lasting throughout the 24-hour day, including the early morning hours.
In addition to the scheduled shutdown of unit 1 in Felton, the report indicated other active faults: unit 1 of the Santa Cruz CTE and unit 6 of the Renté CTE remain out of service. The units currently undergoing maintenance are unit 3 of Santa Cruz, unit 5 of Nuevitas, and unit 5 of Renté. The limitations in thermal generation total 610 MW.
As the only partial relief, photovoltaic solar parks contributed 4,236 MWh on Monday, with a peak power of 659 MW during daylight hours. However, this source does not operate at night, which is precisely when the greatest deficits and the longest blackouts occur.
Felton has a history of repeated shutdowns. Last August, it was taken offline to repair a crack in the upper part of the boiler and over 100 anomalies in the turbo group. After returning online, it went offline again on October 16, and by the 21st of that month, it was already operating well below its capacity due to the buildup of dirt in the boiler.
The electrical crisis that Cuba is experiencing these weeks is extremely serious: the availability of the Cuban SEN covers between 37% and 40% of demand during peak hours, with blackouts exceeding twenty hours a day in some circuits of Havana and nearing 24 hours in Santiago de Cuba. With Felton offline until the end of November, Cubans are facing another night of massive blackouts with no short-term relief in sight.
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