For a lot of Cubans, the sudden cease of a fan is extra than simply an annoyance on a tropical island; it’s a each day reminder of a crucial, nationwide downside. On a median day, the Cuban authorities can meet solely 50 to 70 % of its nation’s electrical energy wants. On high of that, Cuba’s whole grid has collapsed 4 instances within the final six months.
The issue stems from years of neglect of Cuba’s vitality infrastructure, exacerbated by constrained entry to overseas capital and a failure to adapt to new vitality choices. Consequently, Cubans are experiencing a major breakdown in primary companies, such because the storage of contemporary merchandise, primary meals preparation, public lighting, and entry to companies. This has compelled residents to take extraordinary measures, like cooking a number of meals without delay and dealing by flashlight.
Cuba isn’t simply in an vitality disaster; the nation’s grid sits on the verge of systemic failure. The Nationwide Electrical System, most of which was constructed after 1959, hasn’t obtained the funding and upkeep it wants for 35 years—a consequence of Cuba’s complicated political and financial historical past. If neglect continues, the island nation can pay the excessive worth of additional financial decline, and elevated social and political instability.
How did my dwelling nation get right here?
Cuba’s Vitality Infrastructure Disaster
Cuba’s grid infrastructure is so weak that run-of-the-mill problems like transmission line failures and generator journeys are inflicting widespread outages. The sudden shutdown of the Antonio Guiteras oil-fired energy plant began the entire blackout in October 2024. Healthy grids ought to be capable to detect and isolate these sorts of points, and supply backup by means of built-in redundancies. However Cuba’s previous safety programs couldn’t detect the faults, and there weren’t sufficient spinning reserves to compensate for the technology instability, making restoration unattainable.
Underlying the blackouts are three systemic issues: years of insufficient funding, substandard gas, and deferred upkeep. Cuba’s getting older thermal energy crops—the spine of the system, practically all of which run on crude oil or gas oil—have gotten much less dependable, and should function effectively beneath capability due to gas shortages and corrosion. One of many largest, the 330-megawatt Antonio Guiteras plant in Matanzas, typically breaks down as a result of there aren’t sufficient alternative components to restore it. Different amenities have been hit with opposed occasions, such the 2022 fires on the Lidio Ramón Pérez (Felton) and Máximo Gómez (Mariel) thermal crops. Throughout the first 5 months of 2025, solely 34 % of the capability of all of Cuba’s power plants, based mostly on 2023 numbers, was accessible on a median each day foundation.
Cuba’s vitality system additionally suffers from years of reliance on home, poor-quality heavy crude oil, which is corrosive as a result of it’s excessive in sulfur. This has accelerated the damage and tear on boilers, generators, and pipes in Cuba’s energy crops, shortening their life spans and inflicting frequent and expensive outages. Cuba has secured a considerable quantity of oil from Venezuela since 2000 by means of a positive settlement. However Venezuela’s steady financial issues have made this outdoors oil supply much less dependable, with shipments dwindling lately.
To assist compensate for energy deficits, Cuba in 2019 began renting floating thermal energy crops from different international locations reminiscent of Turkey’s Karpowership. By 2023, eight of those sorts of ships have been floating in Mariel Bay, Havana Bay, and Santiago de Cuba Bay. However their destiny is now simply one other symptom of the disaster. The federal government had bother paying the excessive leasing costs, so the ships’ operators withdrew from Cuba’s waters, taking a whole bunch of megawatts with them.
Cuba’s Renewable Vitality Choices
Heavy crude oil isn’t Cuba’s solely useful resource; it has a wealth of untapped renewable vitality choices, together with photo voltaic, wind, and probably sugarcane biomass. However the transition to renewables has progressed slowly and considerably haphazardly, regardless of formidable targets set by the federal government.
Essential renewable energy projects typically get delayed resulting from bureaucratic hurdles and a scarcity of funding. The instability of the grid makes it more difficult to combine large-scale renewable vitality installations, as they require secure connections to operate successfully. And whereas the nation actively seeks solar energy, it’s overlooking its once-thriving sugar sector, and the biomass and ethanol assets that include it.
The Cuban authorities’s puzzling determination to take a position closely in constructing costly accommodations and enhancing tourism infrastructure whereas neglecting vital grid updates has additionally made the system extra weak. From 2010 and 2024, Cuba spent about 32 % of complete funding on tourism-related infrastructure, and solely 12 % on vitality infrastructure, in keeping with Cuba’s Nationwide Statistics Workplace.
Cuba’s economic system is in a poor state because of the well-established inefficiencies of its financial mannequin and U.S. sanctions that worsened underneath the primary Trump administration and stay largely in place. Consequently, the federal government lacks the mandatory laborious foreign money to import gasoline, purchase the spare components it wants, entry the most recent know-how, and appeal to vital overseas funding that’s important for upgrading its vitality infrastructure.
Cuba’s Energy Outages and Rationing Breeds Resentment
The Cuban authorities reacts to its extreme deficit with placing public ceremony. Each morning, often between 7:00 and eight:00, officers brazenly declare the anticipated electricity generation shortfall. Then, provincial leaders throughout the island painstakingly select which of their communities will lose energy and for the way lengthy—on common 19 hours, and a few over 24 hours.
Every day electrical energy deficits in Cuba have averaged round 1600 MW in 2025, in keeping with knowledge compiled from each day press releases from Unión Eléctrica (UNE), the state-owned firm chargeable for Cuba’s electrical energy system, and information retailers. Knowledge from Cuba’s 4 current grid collapses have been excluded.
Blackouts for these “interruptible circuits,” as provincial electrical firms confer with them, are speculated to rotate based mostly on a schedule. However the precise electrical energy availability nearly all the time falls wanting the plan, so the rotation isn’t carried out as meant. And with sure companies and companies being prioritized for energy, a disproportionate share of the outages falls on a portion of consumers.
Havana, the capital, will get partly shielded from this, resulting from its political and financial significance. It’s a favoritism that understandably breeds resentment in different areas. However even in Havana, residents on interruptible circuits should cope with no less than 4 hours of energy outages on daily basis—a state of affairs that has worsened this 12 months.
In each town and the countryside, the ability outages and extended uncertainty have altered primary companies, economies, and each day life. Fridges lose their cooling energy, ruining beneficial meals that was bought at a excessive worth. Companies should shut, leading to misplaced income and productiveness. College students battle to check when their cellphone batteries are low, partly as a result of they use their telephones as flashlights. Some medical amenities have backup turbines, however they’re not all the time operational resulting from a scarcity of spare components. Internet connectivity has grown much less dependable.
Cuba’s Restoration Plans
The Cuban administration has admitted that the state of affairs is extreme and has developed particular recovery plans. These embody investing in thermal plant upkeep, including new capability, including photo voltaic vitality, and securing gas provides from overseas. Nonetheless, progress is gradual and restricted by the identical issues that prompted the disaster within the first place.
To repair the thermal models, it’s crucial to convey main electrical energy suppliers, reminiscent of Guiteras and Cienfuegos, again to a state the place they’ll function reliably once more. Nonetheless, this technique is akin to patching up a dam that’s falling aside. Lengthy-term enhancements are extra essential than simply repairs, however they require assets that aren’t at present accessible.
There are insurance policies in place that encourage rooftop solar, which individuals generally purchase from different international locations. Small photo voltaic parks are additionally being constructed; on the finish of 2024 photo voltaic capability reached 298 MW. Pilot tasks for wind farms are underway.
Angel Rodriguez makes use of a transformer from an previous television to cost a battery in preparation for blackouts at his dwelling within the Bahia neighborhood of Havana on 26 Might 2025.Ramon Espinosa/AP
However improvement lacks scale and velocity. Giant tasks typically battle with monetary constraints and insufficient planning. The federal government set a purpose of deriving 37 % of Cuba’s vitality from renewable sources by 2030; thus far they’ve reached solely 3 %.
Cuba is actively seeking to accomplice internationally on vitality initiatives. Agreements with Russia primarily concentrate on modernizing present thermal amenities and presumably developing new ones. Mexico and different allies have additionally helped by sending gas provides.
Talks with potential buyers for inexperienced tasks are shifting ahead, however the funding local weather is sort of difficult due to Cuba’s financial mannequin and disaster, its historical past of defaults on funds to overseas firms, and U.S. sanctions. In partnership with China, Cuba is constructing as much as 2,000 MW of photo voltaic capability over greater than 92 photo voltaic parks throughout the nation. China already despatched Cuba tools for greater than 100 MW of photo voltaic capability by means of a special program. By January 2026, about 1,100 MW of this new capability is anticipated to be operational, in keeping with the Cuban authorities.
As the first power grid fails, Cubans with assets are taking issues into their very own fingers, typically in determined methods. Companies, hospitals, and rich households are putting in gasoline and photo voltaic turbines; the incessant noise from which has grow to be a part of town’s soundscape. Some communities are working collectively to put in photo voltaic and battery programs. For instance, a farmers’ cooperative in Artemisa powers its processing and irrigation amenities this fashion. These examples present a crucial, bottom-up change, however they’re few and much between due to prohibitive upfront prices.
Cuba’s individuals are struggling as a result of the vitality system is being pushed too far. And the excellent adjustments required for real, long-term restoration are at present past the island’s capabilities. The lights got here again on after every main blackout, however the specter of the following one looms consistently.
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