Cuba’s worsening power disaster, reported by native retailers and X posts, pushes residents like María Elena Veiga to prepare dinner with charcoal.
The 60-year-old housewife from San Nicolás de Bari, 60 kilometers northwest of Havana, faces each day blackouts lasting over 20 hours. With electrical energy scarce and gasoline almost unavailable, she depends on charcoal fires, a necessity shared by thousands and thousands throughout the island’s 10 million residents.
The nation’s energy grid crumbles as just a few of its seven oil-fired thermoelectric vegetation perform, producing 15,331 gigawatt-hours in 2023. Losses swallow 3,716 gigawatt-hours, whereas peak demand hits 3,000 megawatts, unmet since deficits soared to 1,900 megawatts in early 2025.
The Antonio Guiteras plant’s latest failure throughout testing on February 7 worsens the pressure, leaving 57% of Cuba with out energy at occasions. Gasoline shortages cripple smaller diesel turbines, forcing the federal government to shut colleges for 2 days final week and ship non-essential employees house.
Cuba blames the U.S. embargo for blocking gasoline and spare elements, although critics spotlight many years of uncared for infrastructure. The economic system reels from Trump-era sanctions, the pandemic, and a deal with luxurious inns over energy vegetation.
Cuba’s Vitality Disaster Deepens
Charcoal now prices 2,000 pesos per sack—a month’s wage for a lot of—as households queue for gasoline or scavenge wooden. Mirella Martínez, 72, cooks beans on a small charcoal range, enduring complete days with out electrical energy.
The disaster echoes 2021 protests over shortages, hinting at brewing unrest amid falling wages and a thriving black market. Final 12 months’s grid collapses left the nation darkish, and as we speak’s outages disrupt companies, colleges, and hospitals, threatening financial stability.
Cuba’s thermoelectric vegetation break down sooner than employees restore them, with high-sulfur oil clogging techniques designed for higher gasoline. The federal government scrambles, however options stay elusive as residents adapt to a dim actuality.
This power collapse reveals deeper woes: an embargo, sure, but in addition a system unprepared for contemporary calls for. Companies watch intently as Cuba’s 10 million individuals, as soon as promised prosperity after 1959, now prepare dinner over open flames. The figures—1,900-megawatt deficits, 20-hour blackouts—inform a narrative of resilience examined and a nation on the sting.