Cuba restores national power grid following major outage

Cuba fully restored its national electrical grid following an extensive blackout that shut down power across the island, state authorities announced Sunday.

Technicians reconnected the island's transmission infrastructure on Saturday evening at 7.56 pm (2356GMT), the National Electric Union said on US social media company X.

The utility said solar photovoltaic output reached 985 megawatt-hours during recovery operations, a lower volume than preceding days due to reconnection procedures. By early Sunday, power generation stood at 1,160 megawatts against a demand of 2,673 megawatts, leaving 1,510 megawatts affected.

Grid operators project peak evening electricity demand will reach 3,200 megawatts against 1,160 megawatts of available capacity, creating an anticipated deficit of 2,040 megawatts and affecting an estimated 2,070 megawatts of consumption during high-use hours.

The state utility reported ongoing boiler and unit breakdowns across several major thermoelectric generation plants, including unit eight at CTE (thermoelectric power plant) Mariel, the central block at CTE Guiteras, unit two at CTE Felton, and unit three at CTE Rente. Scheduled maintenance further idled unit three at CTE Santa Cruz and unit five at both Nuevitas and Rente facilities.

Cuba suffers from persistent electricity instability, fuel shortages, and recurring generation blackouts, which Havana attributes to deteriorating infrastructure and severe economic US blockades that restrict fuel imports, critical spare parts, and foreign investment.