Raul Castro went out this Monday for a walk with Miguel Díaz-Canel at the Lidio Ramón Pérez thermoelectric plant, in Felton, in Mayarí. The general stood to the right of his successor during the tour of the Holguin plant as a more than necessary support staff for the leader, who announced the end of the blackouts for next December.
The term would look like a new hell if it were not for the fact that the same man stated last May that the energy situation would improve before June began.
“Felton 1 decides today the course of the recovery strategy and its start-up is vital for the fulfillment of the objectives set, in the first order, to minimize or eliminate the blackouts next December,” Díaz-Canel explained.
Edier Guzmán Pacheco, director of thermal generation of the Electric Union (UNE) explained that since the beginning of August a program is being carried out that should solve the problems of the plant this summer, with a view to starting the shooting and start-up of the unit “Coming Soon”.
A program is being carried out that should solve the plant’s problems this summer, with a view to starting the running-in and start-up of the unit “very soon”
For this, technical modifications have been made to the machine and auxiliary systems, in addition to tests that guarantee “the stability, reliability and efficiency of the equipment”.
Felton, the Holguin energy colossus, with the capacity to supply some 500 MW, had at the end of July a breakdown in the boiler of unit 1 that caused it to leave the National Electric System, while unit 2 has been disabled since the beginning of July. same month suffered a great fire.
The machine of the first unit, which is being repaired, must reach, according to the director of the plant, Euclides Rodríguez Mejías, 260 MW. “It would be a positive injection and would significantly reduce the effects on the population,” he said.
“We will have whatever support is needed in Felton,” Rodríguez explained to the official press. “It’s a compromise, but Felton is prepared to take it on.”
Regarding block 2, its project manager, Eric Milanés Quinzán, said that 8% of its structure has been dismantled and work will be done on the reconstruction of the boiler, the maintenance of the turbine’s high-medium cylinder, as well as as the incorporation of various equipment.
Díaz-Canel, who also came to visit the Santiago de Cuba power plant, explained that the task is focused not only on quickly repairing the faults to overcome the power outages of up to 12 and 14 hours, which have the citizens to the limit, rather, it is about stabilizing the system with investments that will arrive in 2023 and changing the electro-energy matrix.
“Díaz-Canel will feel calmer having obtained the explicit support of Raúl Castro, so any maneuver to relieve him of his post has been put on hold until further notice”
These investments and their capture are, in the opinion of the Cuban economist residing in Spain, Elías Amor, one of the possible reasons that led Raúl Castro to stand yesterday, at 90 years old, next to his dolphin. “That Raúl Castro shows his face could mean a warning for those foreign investors who seek to remember the Castros for their offices in Madrid or Paris,” says the expert, who warns of the lack of media appeal of Díaz-Canel for businessmen who ” in their youth they had communist ideas and now, at the head of large corporations, they feel an unhealthy attraction for the Cuban regime”.
Although the economist considers that there is another important reason: to express the Army’s support for the head of state and, therefore, for the risks faced by citizens who protest the blackouts.
“Díaz-Canel will feel calmer having obtained the explicit support of Raúl Castro, so any maneuver to relieve him of his post has been put on hold until further notice,” he adds. “The Cuban communists thus lose the political initiative, if they ever had it, and instead of concentrating on changing things and preparing a viable future for Cuba, they concentrate on technical programs to solve the failures that took the different units of the centrals, which do not raise their heads. Order and discipline, the eternal chant of Raúl Castro”.
Meanwhile, the population continues to be desperate and this Monday the week began with a 36% deficit, with a generation of 2,280 MW for a maximum demand of 3,100 MW. The UNE predicted that up to 890 MW would be missing during the hours of greatest consumption.
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