That’s what happened: Cuba’s power grid collapsed again early Saturday morning (local time), hours after initial progress was reported in restoring power. After a first nationwide blackout on Friday, the electricity went out again nationwide at 6:15 a.m. on Saturday morning, Cuban state media reported. The state electricity supplier UNE is continuing to work on restoring supply on the Caribbean island.
That preceded it: In the morning, light was briefly visible in some quarters of the capital Havana, but then it went out again. According to the report, power was restored in some hospitals in Havana, but in some cases only temporarily. There are shops that use generators to supply electricity, it said.
Cubans are used to power outages. But now it has hit the entire country and also the city of Havana.
Reuters/ Norlys Perez
That was the cause: The important Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric power plant went offline on Friday. This led to a general power outage in the country, the Energy Ministry said. Several other power plants were already out of operation due to their poor condition.
That’s the context: Cuba is in one of the worst economic crises since Fidel Castro’s revolution in 1959. Due to the poor condition of the outdated infrastructure, the thermoelectric power plants in Cuba regularly go offline and need to be repaired. Power outages are part of everyday life across the country.
That’s what the government did: Even before the total power outage, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero presented measures to save electricity and fuel in a televised speech on Thursday night. Activities that are not absolutely necessary should be stopped.
This is how society reacted: Many Cubans took the fact that Marrero’s speech began two hours late due to technical problems and that the Prime Minister was difficult or impossible to understand on TV as an opportunity for ridicule and anger on social media. For many, the failed performance illustrated the government’s incompetence.
Therefore the USA should be to blame: President Miguel Díaz-Canel wrote on The authoritarian communists blame American sanctions for many of the problems in Cuba. The US trade embargo against Cuba has existed for more than 60 years.
That’s why the problems are home-made: There are also other reasons for the current economic crisis: too little tourism, less support from its ally Venezuela because of the crisis there and, last but not least, the inefficiently organized economy. Almost everything has to be imported – even the important product sugar is no longer enough for internal needs. However, the one-party state lacks foreign currency. In addition to food and fuel, medicines, among other things, are also in short supply. Cubans are leaving the country en masse. According to official figures, the population shrank by almost ten percent in 2022 and 2023 alone.
