A 54-year-old electrician suffered burns after an electrical contact accident that occurred this Friday at the Havana 220 kV Substation, an incident that also generated service failures and blackouts in several areas of the capital and neighboring territories.
The worker, identified as Joaquín Vázquez Vázquez and with 25 years of experience in the sector, is conscious and hospitalized, although his medical prognosis has not been specified so far, he noted in Facebook the journalist Lázaro Manuel Alonso.
Although the entity has already reported that the service for this reason has already been restored, the event was recorded at 11:27 in the morning during brigade operations.
The breakdown impacted the Plaza, Príncipe, Tropical and Rincón Boyeros substations, with service interruptions in Boyeros, Playa, Marianao, Plaza, Cerro and Centro Habana, as well as areas of Artemisa and Mayabeque.
Last September, a 35-year-old lineman suffered burns on both arms after a work accident in San Miguel del Padrón while repairing a damaged electrical conductor.
Osmani Hernández Madroza, a specialized lineman from the Havana Electric Company, was injured when making electrical contact on the corner of Pepe Prieto and San Manuel.
That incident occurred in the midst of the recovery of the Cuban electrical system after the total disconnection it suffered that month, following one of the outages of the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant in Matanzas.
Blackouts close to 1768 MW tonight
The country will face a maximum impact of 1,768 MW tonight during peak demand hours, according to the official forecast of the Electrical Union.
At 06:00 this Friday, the availability of the National Electroenergy System was only 1,207 MW compared to a demand of 1,914 MW, which leaves a deficit of 723 MW.
For peak hours, an availability of 1,412 MW is expected against a demand of 3,150 MW, the report adds.
The main breakdowns affect Unit 2 of the CTE Santa Cruz, Unit 2 of the CTE Felton and Units 5 and 6 of the CTE Antonio Maceo, which has caused the forced departure of these units from the system.
In addition, Unit 6 of the Mariel CTE, Unit 5 of Nuevitas and Unit 4 of the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes CTE are under maintenance, while limitations in thermal generation total 451 MW out of service.
Although the entry of 90 MW from the Mariel fuel site, 40 MW from five engines in Patana de Regla and 75 MW from Felton Unit 1 is expected, the deficit will remain high.
Yesterday, the maximum impact was 1887 MW at 7:10 p.m. and outages continued for 24 hours. The 51 photovoltaic solar parks contributed 4,879 MWh, with a peak of 858 MW.
The situation began to worsen at the beginning of this year after the oil fence of the US and the cutoff of Venezuela’s oil supply following the fall of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a US military operation.
Analysts warn that Cuba could reach hour zero if a ship with oil does not enter by mid-March.
“If by mid-March we do not see a tanker on the horizon, Cuba will have reached zero hour,” warned Jorge Piñón, a researcher at the Energy Institute at the University of Texas, USA. in conversation with the Spanish newspaper The Country published this Saturday.
The phrase summarizes the severity of the energy crisis that the island is going through, marked by the lack of hydrocarbons, the deterioration of thermoelectric plants and the tightening of the US blockade that seeks to suffocate the country’s economy, which has decreased 15% in the last five years.
