Cuba suffers a power outage after a power plant near Havana fails

Cuba’s power grid went down and the entire country was plunged into darkness on Friday, less than a day after the government stressed the need to cripple the economy to save electricity in the face of massive gasoline shortages and widespread power outages.

Power was cut across the country on Friday morning after a malfunction at a thermal power plant in Matanzas, east of Havana, the Cuban Energy Ministry said on Friday.

The power outage came less than a day after Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz gave a late-night television address with state officials to discuss the ongoing electricity crisis, which experts said is the worst the country — long accustomed to food and electricity shortages — has seen in recent years. ever.

For weeks, the country lacked the fuel needed to power the electricity grid, leaving large parts of the country without power for 15 to 20 hours.

When power comes back on, demand rises, putting more pressure on the power grid, Marrero said Thursday evening, urging people to cut back on usage.

To relieve pressure on the electrical grid, officials announced Thursday evening that all schools would be closed until Monday and cultural and non-essential activities such as nightclubs would be closed.

According to the British Daily Mail, only essential employees should go to work An advertisement has been posted On some government websites, which said that hospitals would remain open. Any energy consuming and non-critical service will be suspended.

“In other words, we have paralyzed economic activity,” Marrero said. Officials said they were investigating the cause of the malfunction at the Matanzas power plant.

Cuba has long suffered from outdated and poorly maintained infrastructure, unable to produce the amount of megawatts needed by the country with a population of about 11 million people.

Cuba has traditionally relied on Venezuela for imports, but faced with dwindling supplies from that country, it has in recent years begun to look to Mexico and Russia. The severe economic crisis and resulting cash crunch made it difficult for Cuba to pay for these fuel imports.

For more than a year, this led to major gasoline shortages, leading to long lines at gas stations. The government has warned that it will have to significantly increase fuel and electricity prices to save money and urge people to reduce their consumption.

Mr. Marrero said the crisis had worsened recently because bad weather conditions had prevented oil ships from unloading fuel shipments. He added that Cuba’s energy infrastructure was in poor condition, but fuel shortages were the biggest factor in the ongoing problem.

President Miguel Díaz-Canel has blamed the US trade embargo on Cuba, which limits the country’s ability to import fuel, for creating cash shortages for the government and imposing hardship on Cubans.

Miriam Leyva, an opposition journalist in Havana, said the electricity shortage was so bad that Marrero’s video news conference was delayed by several hours due to technical difficulties, which viewers viewed as likely the result of problems with the power grid.

She said the fact that the country’s normally secretive leaders were traveling via airline to share detailed updates underscores the seriousness of the crisis, and shows that government officials were nervous and even desperate.

Facing an authoritarian government, widespread gasoline shortages and rising food prices, more than 600,000 Cubans have fled to the United States since 2022, US data show.

“This is a situation that has never happened before,” Ms. Leyva said, referring to the energy crisis. “What’s worse is that they have no idea when or how they will solve the problem.”

Ms. Leyva said the problem is particularly serious outside Havana, where people remain without power for long periods. (A spokesman for the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay said that the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay operates under its own independent power grid.)

Ms. Leyva said that the Cuban government appears to be trying to meet the challenge by limiting the duration of power outages in Havana neighborhoods where it fears popular uprisings. Tens of thousands of people across the country took to the streets in protest after a particularly difficult period in 2021, a display of discontent the government seemed keen to avoid.

Ms. Leyva said she went to a bakery on Friday to buy bread and found nothing.

“There is no bread, and they do not know when there will be bread,” she said. “Sometimes it’s because there’s no flour. Today it’s because there’s no electricity.”

Alfredo Lopez Valdes, director general of the National Electricity Company, said the country was working on solutions, but added that they would not come quickly.

“We are fighting. “We are not sitting idly by,” Mr. Lopez said. “We realize that the situation is very difficult.”

Carol Rosenberg Contributed to reports.