Cuba faces this Saturday another day of blackoutsaccording to the state-owned Electric Union (UNE), which reports nine generating units out of service.
According to the part of the entity, quoted by official mediaon this day the maximum impact expected for the day is 850 MW, while during the peak night hours 1,257 MW will be affected, 90 of them due to the damage caused in the west of the country by the powerful Hurricane Ian.
For that time, the UNE foresees the generation of 138 MW by diesel engines as well as the entry of unit 4 of the Thermoelectric Power Plant (CTE) Renté, in Santiago de Cuba, which did not manage to synchronize before, as planned, and was this morning in boot process.
The rest of the units dismissed due to breakdowns are units 6 and 7 of the CTE Mariel, the unit of the CTE Otto Parellada, the CTE Antonio Guiteras, the 4 and 5 of the CTE Nuevitas, the 2 of the CTE Felton and the 6 of the CTE Rent. Unit 3 of this plant is still undergoing maintenance, while in distributed generation 1,062 MW are unavailable due to failure, and 672 MW are undergoing maintenance.
Yesterday, according to the UNE, the service was affected due to a deficit in generation capacity throughout the day, with a maximum of 1,432 MW at 7:10 p.m., of which 118 MW were due to the damage caused by Hurricane Ian.
Cuba has suffered for months from long and annoying blackouts, in the midst of a severe economic crisis. Power outages are mainly caused by breakdowns and maintenance in generating plants, weighed down by their technological obsolescence, and also by fuel shortages.
Added to this is the serious damage caused to the electrical infrastructure by Hurricane Ian, during which a breakdown caused the shutdown of all the thermoelectric plants and shut down practically the entire Island. These damages, which caused street protests in different locations, including Havana, they still remain in the territories of Pinar del Río and Artemisa, the provinces most affected by the meteor.
