Cuba suffers a new national blackout, the second in a week

Havana.- Cuba suffered this Saturday a new national blackout due to a total disconnection of the National Electric System (SEN) at 6:38 p.m. local time (10:38 p.m. GMT), the second in less than a week and the seventh in a year and a half. The Ministry of Energy and Mines (Minem) reported on social media about the new incident: “There has been a total disconnection of the National Electric System. Protocols for restoration are already beginning to be implemented.” At the moment, no possible causes for the disconnection have been identified. Cuba has been plunged into a deep energy crisis since mid-2024, a situation that has worsened in the last three months with the oil blockade imposed by the U.S., which has led to peak electricity cuts. In the last two weeks, two national blackouts and a massive supply cut have been recorded, leaving two-thirds of the island without electricity. Normally, the situation is already critical: the cuts in Havana are about 15 hours a day and in some regions two consecutive days without service have been reached. We recommend reading:

Energy Crisis

Based on previous experiences, the restoration of the National Electric System (SEN) is a slow and laborious procedure that can take days. It involves starting to generate energy with the easy-start sources (solar, hydroelectric, generation engines) to provide service to small areas that are then interconnected. The goal is to bring enough energy as soon as possible to the thermoelectric plants of the country, the pillar of electricity generation in Cuba, so that they can start up again and produce energy in large quantities to meet demand. The essential problem that differentiates this occasion -and that of this Monday- from the previous ones is that currently the country has almost no diesel and fuel oil for its generation engines due to the US oil blockade. You can also read: Energizing thermoelectric plants without this fast-starting energy source can be a challenge, as recently explained by the General Director of Electricity of Minem, Lázaro Guerra, after a massive blackout that affected about six million Cubans.