For a lot of Cubans, the sudden cease of a fan is extra than simply an annoyance on a tropical island; it’s a every day reminder of a vital, nation-wide downside. On a median day, the Cuban authorities can solely meet 50 to 70 % of its nation’s electrical energy wants. On high of that, Cuba’s whole grid has collapsed 4 occasions within the final six months.
The issue stems from years of neglect of Cuba’s vitality infrastructure, exacerbated by constrained entry to international capital and a failure to adapt to new vitality choices. In consequence, 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 value of additional financial decline, and elevated social and political instability.
How did my dwelling nation get right here?
Cuba’s Power 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 surprising shutdown of the Antonio Guiteras oil-fired energy plant began the overall blackout in October 2024. Healthy grids ought to be capable of 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 inconceivable.
Underlying the blackouts are three systemic issues: years of insufficient funding, substandard gas, and deferred upkeep. Cuba’s getting old 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, usually breaks down as a result of there aren’t sufficient substitute components to restore it. Different amenities have been hit with antagonistic occasions, such the 2022 fires on the Lidio Ramón Pérez (Felton) and Máximo Gómez (Mariel) thermal crops. Through the first 5 months of 2025, solely 34 % of the capability of all of Cuba’s power plants, based mostly on 2023 numbers, was out there on a median every 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 lifespans and inflicting frequent and dear 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 akin to Turkey’s Karpowership. By 2023, eight of those sorts of ships had 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 lots of of megawatts with them.
Cuba’s Renewable Power 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 doubtlessly sugarcane biomass. However the transition to renewables has progressed slowly and considerably haphazardly, regardless of bold objectives set by the federal government.
Essential renewable energy projects usually get delayed resulting from bureaucratic hurdles and a scarcity of funding. The instability of the grid makes it tougher to combine large-scale renewable vitality installations, as they require secure connections to perform 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 speculate closely in constructing costly motels and enhancing tourism infrastructure whereas neglecting crucial 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 response to Cuba’s Nationwide Statistics Workplace.
Cuba’s financial system is in a poor state as a result of well-established inefficiencies of its financial mannequin and U.S. sanctions that worsened beneath the primary Trump administration and stay largely in place. In consequence, the federal government lacks the required arduous forex to import gasoline, purchase the spare components it wants, entry the most recent expertise, and entice vital international 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 hanging public ceremony. Each morning, often between 7:00 and eight:00, officers overtly 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.
Each day electrical energy deficits in Cuba have averaged round 1600 MW in 2025, in response to knowledge compiled from every day press releases from Unión Eléctrica (UNE), the state-owned firm chargeable for Cuba’s electrical energy system, and information shops. Information from Cuba’s 4 latest grid collapses had been excluded.
Blackouts for these “interruptible circuits,” as provincial electrical firms confer with them, are imagined to rotate based mostly on a schedule. However the precise electrical energy availability nearly at all times falls wanting the plan, so the rotation isn’t carried out as supposed. And with sure companies and companies being prioritized for energy, a disproportionate share of the outages falls on a portion of shoppers.
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 at the least 4 hours of energy outages day-after-day—a scenario that has worsened this 12 months.
In each the town and the countryside, the facility outages and extended uncertainty have altered primary companies, economies and every day life. Fridges lose their cooling energy, ruining precious meals that was bought at a excessive value. Companies should shut, leading to misplaced income and productiveness. College students wrestle to review when their telephone batteries are low, partially as a result of they use their telephones as flashlights. Some medical amenities have backup mills, however they’re not at all times 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 scenario 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. Nevertheless, progress is gradual and restricted by the identical issues that triggered the disaster within the first place.
To repair the thermal items, it’s crucial to carry main electrical energy suppliers, akin to Guiteras and Cienfuegos, again to a state the place they’ll function reliably once more. Nevertheless, this technique is akin to patching up a dam that’s falling aside. Lengthy-term enhancements are extra vital than simply repairs, however they require assets that aren’t presently out there.
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 initiatives 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, Cuba on Could 26, 2025.Ramon Espinosa/AP
However growth lacks scale and velocity. Giant initiatives usually wrestle with monetary constraints and insufficient planning. The federal government set a aim of deriving 37 % of Cuba’s vitality from renewable sources by 2030; up to now they’ve reached solely 3 %.
Cuba is actively seeking to companion internationally on vitality initiatives. Agreements with Russia primarily deal with 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 initiatives are transferring ahead, however the funding local weather is sort of tough due to Cuba’s financial mannequin and disaster, its historical past of defaults on funds to international 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 gear 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 predicted to be operational, in response to the Cuban authorities.
As the first power grid fails, Cubans with assets are taking issues into their very own fingers, usually in determined methods. Companies, hospitals, and rich households are putting in gasoline and photo voltaic mills; the incessant noise from which has turn into a part of the 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 manner. These examples present a vital, bottom-up change, however they’re few and much between due to prohibitive upfront prices.
Cuba’s persons 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 presently past the island’s capabilities. The lights got here again on after every main blackout, however the specter of the subsequent one looms continually.
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