The Thermoelectric Power Plant (CTE) Antonio Guiteras, located in the western province of Matanzas, joined the National Electroenergetic System (SEN) on Thursday night after five days out of service due to breakages in its boiler area, official media on the island reported.
From “strenuous effort” rated the official newspaper Granma the work carried out by the specialists and workers of the Electric Union (UNE) to put into operation the largest and most efficient unitary block in the country, in charge of guaranteeing the consumption of electric power in most of the western region, something that had to happen in the midst of a “complex energy landscape”.
If there is stability, it is expected that shortly after 8:00 pm the synchronization with the SEN will take place. From that moment on, the Guiteras will gradually recover its generation capacity. pic.twitter.com/l8V4JkNrNO
— Electric Union (@OSDE_UNE) April 21, 2022
Misbel Palmero Aguilar, general director of the plant, highlighted the complexity of the actions for being an area of difficult access and where, he insisted, it is very dangerous to undertake any movement or proceed, the media reports.
The irregular situation due to technical problems, both in the Matanzas thermoelectric plant and in other generating plants of the system, as well as the departure of other units due to scheduled maintenance actions, has resulted in annoying interruptions (known as: blackouts) of the electrical service to the population.
La Guiteras, as this CTE is known, stopped its electricity production due to an “unforeseen outage” last Saturday. After its breakdown, the UNE stated that it would work “uninterruptedly” and recognized that “for almost a decade the necessary capital maintenance” of that plant has been postponed. As reportedthat maintenance was planned for “the last quarter” of this year.
Three days later, the thermal block could not pass a test for his start and synchronization to the SEN. At that time Palmero explained to the newspaper Gironfrom Matanzas, “the difficulties that have arisen in the last hours force the use of lifting equipment to be able to ascend a height of 24 meters, where the faults related to the boiler furnace are found.”
In the middle of last March, Guiteras itself, which has an installed generation capacity of around 317 megawatts (Mw) but in its current state is about 100 Mw short of reaching that figure, had also left the SEN unexpectedly and it recovered its operability five days later.
The electric power generation has been one of the biggest problems faced by the Cuban Government in the midst of the economic crisis, aggravated by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the embargo imposed by the various US administrations and the limited effect of the measures taken to update the economic model.
To mitigate the impact of the generation deficit and the annoying blackouts, one of the triggers for the protests last July on the island, the Cuban authorities have implemented, with greater or lesser success, some alternatives, including the incorporation of several floating plants from Turkey to the SEN.
