On Friday night, Cuba witnessed a general power outage due to the collapse of the national network, officials, the fourth of its kind in 5 months on the island, which is suffering from an economic crisis.
The Ministry of Energy and Mines said that “approximately 20:15 night Friday (00:15 UAE today, Saturday, caused a malfunction in the generation in western Cuba, and the collapse of the national electricity system.”
“In the face of the unexpected interruption of the national electricity system, we are working tirelessly to return it as soon as possible.”
Before midnight, the authorities announced that independent electrical circuits are providing priority sectors such as hospitals in some governorates with energy.
In scenes that became usual, the streets of Havana were sank in darkness, which prompted people to use the lights of phones and lamps.
“It is horrific, we are waiting for a dark week.”
The lights were light in a few hotels and private companies equipped with private electrical generators, as well as basic services such as hospitals.
An economic crisis
These breakdowns in the electricity network come in light of an economic crisis experienced by the island with the Communist system, and is the worst in 30 years, and led to a lack of food, medicine and fuel, as well as an increase in inflation.
The 8 thermal power plants in Cuba, which are almost all operated in the eighties or 1990s, suffer from frequent breakdowns.
It is nourishing with floating Turkish energy ships that help in strengthening the Cuban national network, with expensive imported fuel, often scarce.
Because of the old electricity production system, Al -Jazeera, with a population of 9.7 million people, witnessed 3 large -scale cuts of electricity during the last quarter of 2024, two of which lasted for several days.
Previous interruptions
- In the middle of last October, a malfunction in the Getiras Station- the largest power plant in Cuba- caused the power outage from the island for 4 days.
- The same station was subjected to another failure that stopped the network in December.
- A month ago, Hurricane Rafael also caused the power out of all parts of the country. The Cuban leadership attributes the reasons for the power outage of the 6-year-old American trade ban, which was tightened during the first term of President Donald Trump (2017-2021). To compensate for the electricity shortage, Cuba is quick to create at least 55 solar energy stations with Chinese technology by the end of this year. According to the authorities, these facilities will generate about 1,200 megawatta of electricity, or about 12% of the total national electrical energy.
