Cubans invent emergency solutions to a blackout of more than 24 hours

Holguín, Sancti Spíritus, Havana/“I had to use my electric tricycle to load the child’s fans,” he says from Holguín Omar, who spent the early morning juggling so that his son could sleep in the middle of the national blackout. The method, he adds, is the same as he has used on other occasions when the cuts lengthen. The “invention”, in which he uses the cable of the queen pot in which he cooks, has saved him from spending nights for heat or mosquito bites.

A day after Cuba fell into the nth total blackout and with territories still disconnected from the National Electrical System (SEN), the Electric Union It occurs with a stone in the chest: “The country went from a total blackout (0 MW) to 1,000 MW in less than 24 hours.” The reality of Cubans, however, is not so optimistic. The country generates less than a third of the current that they need in the maximum demand and must have resorted, as always, to the “invention.”

According to the last shared part on the social networks of the state company, “the system advances towards national unification, linking the West and Center with the East. The objective, the authorities add, is to link the two systems that managed to be created during the early morning (between Mariel and Matanzas, and between Matanzas and Camagüey) of blackouts.

Meanwhile, to spend Wednesday night and this Thursday without light, Cubans have resorted to usual methods to ensure that basic needs are covered – such as cooking with coal -, but have also taken advantage of the ingenuity.

In Cienfuegos, where this morning a good part of the residents already had current thanks to the island created between Matanzas and Camagüey, the national blackout day forced families to deploy their best artifacts. The prize, by far, is taken by homemade wind turbines, which Cubans have manufactured to have some electricity in the middle of the cuts.

“Wittering windows compete with solar panels and I have seen many people study the method to install them. I focused on installing my panels, which are easier to connect. Winders carry a little more ingenuity,” he tells 14ymedio Guillermo from that province.

“I have managed to see some already done closely and others under construction, and the propellers are made of anything, but the most common are pieces of water and plastic tanks. They are chosen at convenience. The most difficult thing is the engine. People use those of air conditioners, not those who go on the wall but of the Splitmore modern, ”he says. Cars alternators, he adds, are another frequent option.

With a pulley and gear system, a regulatory box such as panels, in addition to the propellers, “with any tiny is current.” The advantage over photovoltaic energy, values, “is that when the sun goes out, you can still generate electricity” and last night the Cienfuegueros made use of the device.

The obstacle, on the other hand, is to find an expert who knows how to mount the pulley system and a good welder to install the prism form. If it is not done well, he warns, “a ventolera can take the wind turbine.”

However, on the island there are situations that Cuban ingenuity cannot overcome. This is the case of medical care, transport or conservation of food, which They decompose quickly without cooling and with high temperatures.

In the capital – where according to the UNE “there is a risk of retreating in the advanced” in terms of system reconnection – Mariana decided, minutes after the fall of SEN was announced on Wednesday, which would not open the refrigerator anymore. This morning he could finally verify whether the meat he kept remained in good condition when Havana – always prioritized in energy contingencies – recovered part of the service. However, a few hours later, at 8:30 am, the light left again.

What halnera laments the most, however, is not the sway of the service, but the turn in the ophthalmological consultation that had been scheduled. “The first thing I thought was that I had screwed up with the oculista after spending so much work to get it. This morning, when the current came, I thought that perhaps they did not cancel it and went to the polyclinic, but in the end it could not be,” he laments.

Like her, other patients expected the center, located in the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución, to continue paying attention normally but ended up disappointed. “There is a widespread misunderstanding,” he says.

In Sancti Spíritus, Julia’s headache is another: transport. “After the fall of the system, the electric yellow buses left on the street stopped collecting passengers because they had to go back to keep. Now there is no way to be loaded,” he regrets the impossibility of moving through the city.

The spirit, he recounts, spent Wednesday afternoon stationed in the portals of their houses or talking on the sidewalks, a rare view in a city that seems, often, “abandoned.” The most desperate, he says, “were crazy asking for two or three coals to cook because they took this situation unforeseen and the current areas in the city were limited to hospitals and pediatric.”

With the national blackout, “the first thing I did was run to look for drinking water before the end of what I have in the high tanks. When I arrived at the place where it is collected, there was a tail as I had never seen. The same thing happened with the bag bread that they sell near my house,” he recalls, now sold to 280 pesos, instead of the 180 that he normally costs. The fear that food cannot occur in the next few days fired its price.

For their part, the authorities limit themselves to managing the school days, which have been canceled in some provinces until next week. In social networks, the University of Havana announced Thursday that it would reestablish the “protection system for energy contingency times”, a measure that forces students and workers to make rounds to ensure the educational headquarters.

The order, the publication is clear, is “the saving of water and gas.” As for communications, for which a generator group is available, they will be minimal.

At the same time, the whole country expects the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant to start again, the same that caused the fall of the SEN and, at the same time, the main hope that it will recover.