From our Bureau of Socialist Electrical Wizardry with some assistance from our Bureau of Socialist Social Justice
Good news and bad news today for all Cubans on the island. The somewhat good news is that Castrogonia’s decrepit and unreliable inadequate electrical grid is somewhat restored. Emphasis on “somewhat.” The very bad news is that the delivery of electricity throughout the island is still spotty and totally unreliable. Emphasis on “totally.”
Loosely translated from Diario de Cuba
After the restoration of the Cuban electrical system on Tuesday, all territories resumed scheduled blackouts, as the national energy supply functioned until the collapse of Friday, October 18, which lasted more than 72 hours.
Yoanny Acosta Solenzar, director of the Sancti Spíritus Electric Company, commented that although during the early hours of Wednesday, October 22, it was possible to supply energy to all circuits in the territory, the limitations in generation force the maintenance of power cuts by rotating blocks, quoted the local official newspaper Escambray.
The newspaper published a table of cuts of between four and six hours per block, which means blackouts of 12 hours for each of the two circuits in the territory per day.
The state-owned Unión Eléctrica (UNE) predicted a deficit of 1,042 MW for Wednesday, October 22 during the nighttime peak, almost a third of the country’s demand, after reporting that since 2:44 PM on Tuesday, when the national system was restored, the impact was carried out according to the maximum power that could be turned off, similar to how the service was affected before the collapse.
Therefore, during that day the maximum impact due to a deficit in generation capacity was 986 MW at 7:30 PM, coinciding with peak time.
Unit 8 of the Mariel Thermoelectric Plant, units 1 and 3 of Santa Cruz del Norte and unit 2 of Felton remain in breakdown, while unit 2 of Santa Cruz del Norte and unit 5 of Renté are under maintenance. Between them, they add up to 629 MW of non-generation.
Apart from the above, 24 distributed generation plants are out of service due to fuel shortages, which means 95 MW of non-production.
And although the national demand is only 2,950 MW, below the 3,200 MW of last week, the deficit is high again.
The National Defense Council also announced on Wednesday that, “in order to continue the work derived from the period of recovery from the damage caused by the passage of Hurricane Oscar through the eastern region of the country and the restoration of the national electric power system,” it was decided to postpone the suspension of work and teaching activities at a national level until next Sunday, October 27.
The economy of the Island has been paralyzed since last Friday, when the national electric system collapsed. On Saturday, Hurricane Oscar caused enormous damage and at least seven deaths in Guantanamo, where there are still municipalities isolated by land and thousands of inhabitants in flooded areas.
After the restoration of the electrical system in Cuba, 12-hour daily blackouts return
Eventually, Cubans will get used to this, which is no doubt the idea. All that matters to the regime is that there’s no significant rebellion. The miserable living conditions of “the people” are irrelevant otherwise.