The exit of three blocks in Renté adds to the breakdowns in Felton and Nuevitas, as well as to the lack of fuel in the distributed generation.
Madrid, Spain.- The Antonio Maceo Thermoelectric Central (Renté), located in Santiago de Cuba, suffered the departure of two of its generating blocks this weekend, in the middle of the intense days rains that affected the east of the country.
As reported by the Electric Union (UNE), Unit 3 was disconnected from the National Electrical System (SEN) due to a “low vacuum” problem this Sunday. A few minutes later, at 4:14 p.m., Unit 5 also left service, although the state company did not specify the cause of the breakdown or the estimated recovery time. These breaks are added to those of unit 6 that was already out of service.
Failures occur in a context of deep energy crisis on the island, where technological obsolescence, lack of maintenance and fuel shortage have led to the recurring collapse of several thermoelectric plants. In the case of Renté, it is a repeated pattern, because unit 3 had already been offline recently, after failing a few hours after its synchronization.
The incident contradicts the recent announcements of the president Miguel Díaz-Canel, who had promised that I rented would achieve a “sustained stability” before the end of the year.
The UNE He said that yesterday the service was affected 24 hours, with a maximum affectation of 1,894 megawatts at 8:50 p.m., a figure higher than planned.
The current Panorama of the SEN includes other thermoelectricas out of service: Unit 2 of CTE Felton and Unit 5 of Nuevitas are damaged; In maintenance remain units 1 and 2 of Santa Cruz and Unit 4 of the CTE Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, in Cienfuegos.
The lack of fuel also hits the system: 57 distributed generation centrals (483 MW) and 154 MW are out of lubricant, which leaves a total of 637 MW affected by this cause.
With these conditions, the availability at 06:00 on this Monday was 1,630 MW against a demand of 2,913 MW, which caused 1,315 MW affected. For peak schedule, UNE provides an availability of 1,680 MW against a maximum demand of 3,500 MW, which would yield a deficit of 1,790 MW and an estimated affectation of 1,860 MW.
Meanwhile, Cubans face a combination of blackouts, floods and material damage due to rains, which aggravates social discomfort and uncertainty regarding the capacity of the national electrical system to guarantee a stable supply in the short or medium term.
