Power line outage partially separated eastern Cuba from the grid — The Rio Times
On October 10, a 220 kV power transmission line between Nuevitas and Las Tunas went offline in Cuba, partially separating the eastern part of the country from the national power grid. State power company Unión Eléctrica reported that protection systems were triggered on the line at 12:46 local time. The Rio Times reports.
The outage occurred amid a significant generation capacity deficit. For the evening peak in consumption, Unión Eléctrica forecast available capacity of 1,250 MW against demand of 2,900 MW. The gap between available capacity and demand was 1,650 MW, while electricity supply restrictions could reach 1,680 MW.
Electricity deficit
At 6:00 a.m. on October 10, the available capacity of Cuba's power system was also 1,250 MW, while demand was estimated at 2,470 MW. According to Unión Eléctrica, consumers with a load of 1,222 MW remained without electricity supply. The day before, power outages continued throughout the day, and the maximum deficit at 7:30 p.m. reached 1,886 MW.
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Some large thermal power plants were not operating because of malfunctions or maintenance. In particular, the company reported problems at the second unit of Felton and the third and sixth units of Renté. The third unit of Santa Cruz, the fifth unit of Nuevitas, and the fifth unit of Renté were undergoing maintenance.
Fuel problems
Lázaro Guerra Hernández, director general for electricity at Cuba's Ministry of Energy and Mines, said that more than 1,200 MW of ready capacity is not being used because of a shortage of imported fuel. According to CiberCuba, he also said that Cuba had made only one fuel import for the power sector this year. This claim has not been independently confirmed.
Cuba's largest power plant, Antonio Guiteras in Matanzas, returned to the power system overnight and was generating 155 MW. Solar power plants produced 3,830 MWh of electricity on October 9, while their peak daytime capacity was 596 MW. However, after dark they do not generate electricity, when consumption is highest.
