Venezuela donated 12 electricity generators to Cuba that will be installed in Guantanamo during the first half of this year. According to Yojanner Cuevasdirector of the Fuel Oil Generator Group Generation Company (Emgef), the engines will provide more than 27 megawatts (MW) to the province.
The donation is part of a program that aims to achieve the generation of 47.7 MW in Guantánamo and thus alleviate the energy deficit of one of the provinces most affected by blackouts.
The Emgef director explained, during a press conference, that he also plans to obtain spare parts for the equipment, “the majority of imports”, and for the “auxiliary systems” of the generation, that is, water distillers and purifiers of gas.
The official warned the public that they shouldn’t get their hopes up about the end of blackouts, because the optimal operation of imported motors continues to depend on “financing in foreign currency.”
“The repair of a single engine in Germany,” he pointed out, “costs more than 300,000 euros, and there are almost a hundred of these pieces of equipment in the country that have exceeded 12,000 hours of generation and require this type of maintenance.”
The repair process, which Cuevas euphemistically calls “remanufacturing,” is also necessary for engines in the province
The repair process, which Cuevas euphemistically calls “remanufacturing,” is also necessary for engines in the province. Five of your company’s generators can only work two hours each day and another seven must exceed the “maximum operating time”, which will lead to imminent failure.
Among the alternatives that Emgef foresees is the installation of 381 solar panels in rural homes and other programs for the “use of clean energy.” 52 of these panels will be installed in the peasant town of Palenque and a mini photovoltaic park in the town of Los Abiertos. Both towns belong to the Guantanamo municipality of Imías.
After a critical year for the National Electric System, the forecasts for 2023 – after the low demand in the cold months – are not very optimistic. None of the island’s thermoelectric plants have achieved the necessary stability to maintain a constant flow of electricity in the country.
A clear example is the situation of the Lidio Ramón Pérez thermoelectric plant, known as Felton, in Holguín. Unit 1 of this plant, one of the most important on the island, will suspend its operations in February for “scheduled maintenance.”
The news was delivered by the Cuban Vice Prime Minister, the nonagenarian Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, during a recent visit to the plant where he reviewed the status of unit 2, destroyed by a fire in July 2022. From the inspection it was learned that “the disassembly actions continue, the conservation of the components that can be reused, the negotiations with very specific resource providers, and the manufacture of system parts in national industries.”
Operating below its “design possibilities”, the maintenance objective is for Felton unit 1 to reach 250 MW of generation and reduce the fuel consumption of the thermoelectric plant, in addition to “guaranteeing the reliability of the turbine and the boiler”.
Although the managers of the plant promise that the affectation will not be too “sensitive” for the population, it is unlikely that blackouts will be avoided during the repair of unit 1. To support the generation in February, it is supposed to go to work ” a group of machines” that, for the moment, are also in the process of repair.
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