The electricity generation in Cuba This Wednesday’s peak demand time will have the lowest generation availability in recent months, mainly due to the lack of fuel for distributed generation.
For today, the country will be turned off at night in more than 60% of the national territory. With a capacity of just 1,260 MW compared to a maximum demand of 3,230 MW, the most recent report from the Electrical Union It estimates that there will be a deficit of 1970 MW and impacts close to 2000 MW.
On Monday, the general director of Electricity of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, Lázaro Guerra Hernández, he stated on national television that the greatest impact is that distributed generation is practically out of service due to lack of diesel.
“That, of course, means that availability is diminished,” said the specialist, in the midst of a panorama that kept Havana in a blackout for nearly 12 hours on most circuits this Tuesday.
The incidents are concentrated in multiple thermoelectric units with breakdowns or undergoing maintenance, among them Mariel, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, Nuevitas, Felton and Antonio Maceo. In addition, 593 MW of thermal capacity is out of service due to technical limitations.
Added to this is the departure at noon today from Unit 1 of the Ernesto Guevara De La Serna CTE “due to an oil leak in the bearing.”
Yesterday, the 38 photovoltaic solar parks contributed 1,736 MWh with a maximum power of 328 MW during the day, an insufficient figure to compensate for the gap between generation and demand.
Mexico became the main supplier of oil and derivatives to Cuba, raising the geopolitical cost in its relationship with the United States, which promoted supply restrictions to the island from Caracas. after the capture of the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduroaccording to specialists consulted by EFE.
While the Mexican Government maintained that it will continue with shipments, the US Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, stated that so far the country has not been asked to stop crude oil shipments to the island.
Mexico becomes Cuba’s main source of oil and raises geopolitical costs with the US.
Just last weekend, the oil tanker Ocean Mariner arrived in Havana Bay, loaded with some 86 thousand barrels of fuel from Mexico.
The arrival of this shipment occurs in a context of a prolonged energy crisis in Cuba, where large areas face power outages that can last more than 20 hours a day due to breakdowns in obsolete plants and a shortage of foreign currency to purchase fuel.
According to official data, Cuba needs about 110 thousand barrels per day to cover its basic energy needs, of which about 40 thousand are generated internally. Imported fuel represents around 60% of national consumption, and more than half goes to power the country’s thermoelectric plants.
