Cuba’s Vitality Disaster: A Systemic Breakdown

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 essential, nation-wide drawback. On a mean day, the Cuban authorities can solely meet 50 to 70 p.c of its nation’s electrical energy wants. On high of that, Cuba’s total 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 overseas capital and a failure to adapt to new vitality choices. Because of this, Cubans are experiencing a major breakdown in primary companies, such because the storage of recent merchandise, primary meals preparation, public lighting and entry to companies. This has compelled residents to take extraordinary measures, like cooking a number of meals directly 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 advanced 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 residence nation get right here?

Cuba’s Vitality Infrastructure Disaster

Cuba’s grid infrastructure is so weak that run-of-the-mill issues like transmission line failures and generator journeys are inflicting widespread outages. The surprising shutdown of the Antonio Guiteras oil-fired energy plant began the full blackout in October 2024. Wholesome grids ought to have the ability to detect and isolate these sorts of points, and supply backup via built-in redundancies. However Cuba’s outdated safety techniques couldn’t detect the faults and there weren’t sufficient spinning reserves to compensate for the era instability, making restoration not possible.

Underlying the blackouts are three systemic issues: years of insufficient funding, substandard gasoline, and deferred upkeep. Cuba’s ageing thermal energy vegetation—the spine of the system, almost all of which run on crude oil or gasoline oil—have gotten much less dependable, and should function properly beneath capability due to gasoline shortages and corrosion. One of many greatest, the 330-megawatt Antonio Guiteras plant in Matanzas, usually breaks down as a result of there aren’t sufficient substitute elements to restore it. Different amenities have been hit with hostile occasions, such the 2022 fires on the Lidio Ramón Pérez (Felton) and Máximo Gómez (Mariel) thermal vegetation. Through the first 5 months of 2025, solely 34 p.c of the capability of all of Cuba’s energy vegetation, primarily based on 2023 numbers, was accessible on a mean 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 vegetation, shortening their lifespans and inflicting frequent and dear outages. Cuba has secured a considerable quantity of oil from Venezuela since 2000 via a positive settlement. However Venezuela’s steady financial issues have made this outdoors oil supply much less dependable, with shipments dwindling in recent times.

To assist compensate for energy deficits, Cuba in 2019 began renting floating thermal energy vegetation from different nations equivalent 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 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 objectives set by the federal government.

Essential renewable vitality initiatives usually get delayed as a result of bureaucratic hurdles and an absence of funding. The instability of the grid makes it tougher to combine large-scale renewable vitality installations, as they require secure connections to operate successfully. And whereas the nation actively seeks photo voltaic vitality, it’s overlooking its once-thriving sugar sector, and the biomass and ethanol sources that include it.

The Cuban authorities’s puzzling resolution to take a position closely in constructing costly resorts and enhancing tourism infrastructure whereas neglecting crucial grid updates has additionally made the system extra weak. From 2010 and 2024, Cuba spent about 32 p.c of whole funding on tourism-related infrastructure, and solely 12 p.c on vitality infrastructure, in line 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 beneath the primary Trump administration and stay largely in place. Because of this, the federal government lacks the required onerous foreign money to import gasoline, purchase the spare elements it wants, entry the most recent expertise, and entice important 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, normally between 7:00 and eight:00, officers overtly declare the anticipated electrical energy era shortfall. Then, provincial leaders throughout the island painstakingly select which of their communities will lose energy and for a way lengthy—on common 19 hours, and a few over 24 hours.

Blackouts for these “interruptible circuits,” as provincial electrical corporations seek advice from them, are alleged to rotate primarily based on a schedule. However the precise electrical energy availability virtually at all times falls in need of 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 consumers.

Havana, the capital, will get partly shielded from this, as a result of 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 take care of no less than 4 hours of energy outages daily—a scenario that has worsened this yr.

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 helpful meals that was bought at a excessive value. Companies should shut, leading to misplaced income and productiveness. College students wrestle to check when their telephone batteries are low, partially as a result of they use their telephones as flashlights. Some medical amenities have backup turbines, however they’re not at all times operational as a result of an absence of spare elements. Web connectivity has grown much less dependable.

Cuba’s Restoration Plans

The Cuban administration has admitted that the scenario is extreme and has developed particular restoration plans. These embrace investing in thermal plant upkeep, including new capability, including photo voltaic vitality, and securing gasoline provides from overseas. Nevertheless, progress is gradual and restricted by the identical issues that brought on the disaster within the first place.

To repair the thermal models, it’s crucial to convey main electrical energy suppliers, equivalent to Guiteras and Cienfuegos, again to a state the place they’ll function reliably once more. Nevertheless, this methodology is akin to patching up a dam that’s falling aside. Lengthy-term enhancements are extra necessary than simply repairs, however they require sources that aren’t at present accessible.

There are insurance policies in place that encourage rooftop photo voltaic, which individuals generally purchase from different nations. 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 outdated tv to cost a battery in preparation for blackouts at his residence within the Bahia neighborhood of Havana, Cuba on Might 26, 2025.Ramon Espinosa/AP

However improvement lacks scale and velocity. Massive initiatives usually wrestle with monetary constraints and insufficient planning. The federal government set a purpose of deriving 37 p.c of Cuba’s vitality from renewable sources by 2030; thus far they’ve reached solely 3 p.c.

Cuba is actively trying to associate internationally on vitality initiatives. Agreements with Russia primarily give attention to modernizing current thermal amenities and presumably setting up new ones. Mexico and different allies have additionally helped by sending gasoline provides.

Talks with potential traders for inexperienced initiatives 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 corporations, 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 via a special program. By January 2026, about 1,100 MW of this new capability is anticipated to be operational, in line with the Cuban authorities.

As the first energy grid fails, Cubans with sources are taking issues into their very own fingers, usually in determined methods. Companies, hospitals, and rich households are putting in gasoline and photo voltaic turbines; the incessant noise from which has turn into a part of town’s soundscape. Some communities are working collectively to put in photo voltaic and battery techniques. For instance, a farmers’ cooperative in Artemisa powers its processing and irrigation amenities this manner. These examples present a essential, 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 continually.