Cuba will experience simultaneous blackouts in nearly 10% of its territory on Monday evening, according to daily data released by the state-owned company Electrical Union (UNE).
The main causes of the annoying blackouts on the Caribbean island include breakdowns, lack of fuel and maintenance of obsolete land-based thermal power plants.
UNE forecasts a maximum electricity generation capacity of 2,663 megawatts (MW) for today, with demand reaching 2,900 MW.
The deficit – the difference between supply and demand – will be 237 MW and the impact – what will actually be disconnected – will reach 307 MW during the so-called “peak hours”, in the evening.
The island’s electricity system is in a precarious state due to breakdowns in the seven thermal power plants, obsolete due to more than four decades of use, lack of investment and maintenance, as well as imported fuel.
In the last six years, the Cuban government has rented up to seven floating power plants (of which only five currently remain) to alleviate the lack of generating capacity, a quick but temporary, polluting and expensive solution.
Frequent power cuts are damaging the economy – which is expected to contract by one to two percent in 2023 – and are fuelling social discontent in a society already severely affected by an economic crisis for the past four years.
They have also been the incentive for anti-government protests in recent years, including those of July 11, 2021 – the largest in decades – and those of March 17 in Santiago de Cuba and other locations. EFE (I)
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