From our Bureau of Socialist Energy Management with some assistance from our Bureau of Socialist Electrical Social Justice
Yesterday was an especially tough day for many Cubans. Castro, Inc. simply couldn’t crank out the power due to its broken-down electrical plants, its inefficiency, and its lack of fuel. Meanwhile, you can be sure that members of the oligarchy and tourists in their apartheid hotels and resorts were not affected. Great lesson for the little children in school: This is what socialists mean when they speak of social justice.
Loosely translated from Diario de Cuba
The electricity generation deficit in Cuba spiked last Saturday night due to the shutdown of two plants, forcing authorities to acknowledge that power outages would exceed the forecast of the state-owned Unión Eléctrica (UNE).
The official media outlet Cubadebate reported that the deficit reached 1,500 MW during the day, more than 40% of the island’s consumption, “following the unexpected shutdown of the Santa Cruz del Norte 1 plant.”
This was compounded by “the shutdown of the ENERGAS Boca de Jaruco plant, following a weather event that impacted the northern coast of Mayabeque,” according to the report.
Citing Lázaro Guerra Hernández, the General Director of Electricity at the Ministry of Energy and Mines, it added that Unit 3 of the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Thermoelectric Plant in Cienfuegos “had to be limited to 70 MW to carry out corrective actions, and logistical issues in the fuel supply affected the operation of the floating power station in Havana, reducing its generation capacity.”
All of the above points to a deepening of the generation crisis affecting Cuba, which has worsened since September due to the shortage of fuel for the power generators and barges rented from the Turkish company Karadeniz Holding.
Since the end of September, UNE has not forecast daily deficits of less than 1,000 MW. For Saturday, they had announced a deficit of 1,140 MW, which was far exceeded after the aforementioned events. The deficit on Friday had already been 1,198 MW, also higher than forecast.
Out of service due to breakdowns were Units 5 and 8 of the Mariel Thermoelectric Plant, Unit 5 of Nuevitas, Unit 2 of Felton, and Unit 6 of Renté. Meanwhile, Unit 2 of Santa Cruz del Norte and Unit 5 of Renté were undergoing maintenance.
Additionally, 44 distributed generation plants were not operating due to a lack of fuel, as well as the barge in Santiago de Cuba.
On Saturday, the Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, stepped in to give explanations, make new promises, and also lie about the arrival in Cuba of a fuel ship from Russia.
“Next year will be a great year for capacity additions. I dare say that starting from the first quarter of next year, monthly additions to capacity will be made,” he assured, as he and other authorities have done before, without any noticeable improvement in the electrical situation, which has gradually worsened.
The official mentioned investments in the creation of photovoltaic parks that would “significantly ease the situation with fuel, especially for daytime electricity generation.”
He also mentioned his ministry’s efforts to drill wells to increase production levels from Energas plants, as well as the acquisition of a hundred fuel oil engines, despite the fact that this fuel must be imported and traditional suppliers are sending fewer shipments to the island.
However, De la O Levy acknowledged, “reducing blackouts and their impact on the population requires resources and time.” Cubans have been waiting for these solutions for years, as power outages worsened starting in 2021 and have only continued to deteriorate since then.