Cuba’s national power grid crashes again, fuel crisis deepens

Cuba’s national power grid has crashed again as efforts to restore power continue after a nationwide blackout. The country’s ongoing energy crisis has become more pronounced after the country’s power system crashed for the second time on Monday (August 3).
According to state media reports, authorities were working to restore power after a nationwide blackout on Sunday night. Meanwhile, the National Electricity System (SEN) was disrupted again on Monday afternoon. State television journalist Lazaro Manuel Alonso said that while some progress had been made in restoring power, a sudden surge in power caused the entire grid to crash again.
Later, the state power agency UNE said in a statement that the transmission network was disrupted due to adverse weather conditions during the restoration of power. As a result, the power generation units that were restarted were also directly affected and the grid was again paralyzed.
However, authorities said that the situation had improved somewhat by Monday evening. They said four generating units at the Energas Jaruco power plant had been restarted and power had been restored to several substations around the capital, Havana. Cuba’s national electricity grid had been disrupted three times in just nine days in July. Then, another nationwide blackout hit on Sunday night. Monday’s latest outage further complicated the situation.
Cuba, a country of about 10 million people, has been hit hard by repeated power outages, severely disrupting homes, businesses and government services. At the same time, pressure is mounting on the government, which is facing food, fuel and medicine shortages and a prolonged economic recession.
Diplomatic tensions also persist over the power crisis. Cuba says long-standing US sanctions and trade restrictions are preventing the supply of essential fuel, financing and parts, which are the main obstacles to keeping the power system running. The United States, on the other hand, says the weakness of Cuba’s state-controlled economy is the main cause of the crisis.
Most of Cuba’s thermal power plants are decades old. Fuel shortages, poor maintenance and aging infrastructure have repeatedly caused these plants to fail, making it increasingly difficult to restore supply after major power outages.

Source: Reuters