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Around 10 million Cubans have been plunged into darkness following the outage of one of the island nation’s main power plants.
Lazaro Guerra is the general director of electricity at the Cuban Ministry of Energy and Mines.
He says the Antonio Guiteras power plant, the largest and most efficient in the country, was knocked out of service, causing a total grid blackout.
“At 11 a.m., the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, which at that time produced around 210 megawatts, was taken out of service. We examine the reasons for this stop; we currently don’t have the cause, but when the unit went offline the system crashed. In other words, he’s totally worthless from this hour on. Since then, we have been studying the causes of the Antonio Guiteras system failure, but the country was left without energy.”
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on X that there would be no rest until power was restored.
It’s unclear how many people may have seen this post, as the power outage also made the internet inaccessible.
Carlos Roberto Julio was on vacation in Cuba when the lights went out Thursday evening.
His vacation doesn’t go as he hoped.
“Now we also don’t have internet, and we went to the restaurant and there was no food because there was no electricity, but we arrived yesterday, so it’s is difficult to say, but in two days we have already had several inconveniences.”
Alfredo López is the general director of the Electric Union of Cuba.
“We recognize that the situation is very difficult, but those of us who manage these processes are very sensitive to the fact that there are problems and difficulties and that the breakdowns are very strong.”
The massive outage prompted the government to implement emergency measures to reduce demand on the electricity grid.
Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero said this included suspending classes, closing some state-owned workplaces and canceling non-essential services.
“When we say that we have reached this point, we must say in full transparency that we had to paralyze the economy and all the fundamental institutions to be able to guarantee this minimum of electricity to the population.”
The prime minister says the power outage was caused by increased demand from small and medium-sized businesses, the use of air conditioners in homes, breakdowns in aging thermoelectric plants that were not properly maintained and a shortage of fuel to operate certain installations.
Self-employed Marcos Antonio Rosello says he and his family have no choice but to endure whatever the outage could bring.
“We are going through complicated times, all Cubans know it, and well, I suppose the measures that have been taken are for our good, but people feel it. For example, I am a worker, I work and I am I the meaning I have a little boy, the heat is complicated for little ones but hey, we survive and see what we have to face now.
