The Latin American Report # 595

This Wednesday, in the early morning hours, an "unforeseen" outage occurred at a Cuban thermoelectric power plant, which immediately resulted in the disconnection of the entire national power grid. I put the term "unforeseen" in quotes because, these days, something like this happening is the most predictable thing in the world. Of course, the exact time is unknown, but the decrepit power generation infrastructure suggests a state of permanent alert.

The thermoelectric plants, which form the backbone of the entire system, have been operating for years without major capital maintenance, a situation resulting from both U.S. economic sanctions and a lack of timely internal management to foresee the eventual inability to meet demand. The crisis, which I have commented on here several times, began in 2019 when the first Trump administration sanctioned the national fuel import company, although this was also indirectly related to the Venezuelan crisis.

While the Cuban state initially managed to protect the residential sector from power outages, the chronic wear and tear of the thermoelectric plants had not yet begun to fully manifest itself. These are supplemented by a network of small generation engines spread throughout the country that require diesel and fuel oil, and which long ago exceeded their useful life and are only activated for the nighttime peak demand. But the low availability of foreign currency and Washington's financial persecution mean that there is generally a significant lack of fuel to feed this "distributed" generation. This, combined with the fact that there are always several thermal units offline due to breakdowns or maintenance, results in approximately half of the demand during the peak hours, on average, going unmet.

The grid's balance is so fragile that a breakdown like the one at the Guiteras plant—which, furthermore, is the plant that makes the largest individual contribution to the system—inevitably leads to a total system blackout, which is triggered automatically when faced with an unmanageable volume of energy transfer.

Meanwhile, the country is betting everything on expanding renewable energy generation, with an initial investment of $1 billion in photovoltaic solar parks acquired from China. This is expected to translate into 1,000 MW by the end of the year—so far, they have not yet reached 600 MW generated during the midday peak. Investment has also begun in batteries to store surplus energy produced from this source.

Yet, as I have also explained here before, Cuba needs stronger, more comprehensive, and quicker support from countries like Russia and China. This support should not only involve solving the electricity issue but also addressing the other major humanitarian problem people face: the scarcity of affordable food for the majority.

Yes, the government's management is depressing and condemnable, and of course, in the long run, it is true that an organic, productive growth model oriented both inward and outward would have to be established—one that more intensely, intentionally, and strategically attracts foreign capital in larger volumes. But right now, the country needs, plain and simple, a rescue, without forgetting that all the latter is being torpedoed by Washington's aggressive policy.

My reading is that no one is betting anything on Cuba. Allies or friends—like Venezuela in the latter group—have their own problems, so economic rationality takes precedence. Vietnam is probably the country making the most concrete advances in this regard, making Cuba's slowness in responding to certain regulatory demands from Hanoi unwise. The United States, especially with Marco Rubio's influence in the White House, would now be more motivated to act decisively rather than wait to see how long the Cuban Revolution "holds out"—which was the option, perhaps equally cruel, applied by the Biden administration. We will see what comes next for this Island.

This is all for today’s report.