Cuba suffers from another mass blackout that leaves the country in the dark

Cuba suffered a mass blackout on Friday night that left the country in the dark. This is the fourth collapse of the National Electrical System (SEN) in recent months, mainly due to the serious deterioration of the island’s electricity grid.

The authorities said that around 8:15 pm a failure in the tenmeter substation, on the outskirts of Havana, had caused «a significant loss of generation in the west of Cuba and, with it, the SEN fault.»

The Ministry of Energy and Mines indicated in their X account that they were «working on the recovery process.» This Saturday the situation has not yet been resolved in all provinces.

According to Lázaro Guerra Hernández, director of Electricity of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, «microsystems were created in various parts of the country, which allowed the service to be restored in some circuits.»

In statements to press State the official clarified that, «the reason cannot be established exactly», but that «in a preliminary way it is known that the cause is associated with the breakdown in the substation of the tenmer.»

The Ministry later specified in an X statement that some generation units, which began to synchronize, «strengthen the conformed microsystems.»

Deficit effects on generation capacity at peak schedule exceeded 1,300 MW on Friday, which represents more than 40% of the system.

Cuba suffered three disconnections from its national electrical system at the end of last year. The most recent occurred in December when the Antonio Guiteras power plant in Matanzas, the largest electricity producer on the island, stopped working during the early morning.

Jorge Piñón, director of the Energy Program for Latin America and the Caribbean of the University of Texas, told Martí News that «the thermoelectric sector in Cuba is fully collapsed. All (plants) are almonds that break at least once a week.»