Cuba’s electrical grid collapses again leaving millions in the dark

Havana — Cuba’s national electrical system collapsed on Wednesday after the country’s largest power plant failed, the government said, the latest of several such failures as the island’s grid crumbles amid fuel shortages, natural disasters and a struggling economy. 

Cuba’s main power producer, the Antonio Guiteras power plant in Matanzas, shut down at about 2am, prompting the grid collapse as several other power plants were undergoing maintenance and were offline, the energy department said.

State-run utility Cuban Electric Union said it was working to restore power, and the government suspended schools and some work. 

Cuba`s energy minister Vicente de la O’Levy said midday on Wednesday the government would prioritise hospitals and water pumping facilities as it began restoring electricity to scattered circuits around the country. He said he expected the system to be back online by Thursday.

"We have very capable specialists and they are all involved. We’re going step by step," De la O’Levy said.

Millions of people across Cuba were already seeing hours-long rolling blackouts daily before Wednesday’s collapse. Scattered protests have erupted over the past two months over the repeated power failures, as well as water, gas and food shortages.

Cuba’s Soviet-era, oil-fired power plants, which were already struggling to keep the lights on, reached a full-blown crisis in October as oil imports from Venezuela, Russia and Mexico dwindled. Havana blames US sanctions, which complicate financial transactions and the purchase of fuel, for the crisis.

A Reuters witness said early on Wednesday the capital was mostly in the dark. Only a few large hotels  and government buildings had power. Social media reports from Cuba suggested the entire island of about 10-million people was without power, though the government had not confirmed the extent of the outage.

Cuba also was hit by two hurricanes in October and November.

Update: November 4 2024
This story has been updated with new information.

Reuters