Cuba restores national power grid after blackout — Anadolu Agency

Cuba has fully restored its national power grid after a major outage that left the entire island without electricity. As Anadolu Agency reports, specialists reconnected the transmission infrastructure on Saturday at 19:56, or 23:56 Greenwich Mean Time.

Capacity deficit persists

During the restoration work, solar photovoltaic installations generated 985 megawatt-hours. Cuba's National Electric Power Union explained that this figure was lower than on previous days due to grid reconnection procedures.

As of Sunday morning, electricity generation had reached 1,160 megawatts against demand of 2,673 megawatts. Power supply restrictions affected 1,510 megawatts of consumption.

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Problems at thermal power plants

Grid operators forecast that electricity demand will rise to 3,200 megawatts during the evening peak hours, while available capacity will amount to 1,160 megawatts. The expected deficit is estimated at 2,040 megawatts, and restrictions may affect around 2,070 megawatts of consumption.

The state energy company reported boiler and generating-unit malfunctions at several major thermal power plants: unit eight at the Mariel thermal power plant, the central unit at the Guiteras thermal power plant, unit two at the Felton thermal power plant, and unit three at the Rente thermal power plant. Unit three at the Santa Cruz thermal power plant, as well as unit five at the Nuevitas and Rente plants, are out of service due to scheduled maintenance.

Cuba regularly faces unstable electricity supplies, fuel shortages, and disruptions to generation. Havana links the situation to worn-out infrastructure and the U.S. economic blockade, which, according to Cuban authorities, limits imports of fuel and critically important spare parts, as well as investment.