The Antonio Guiteras Thermoelectric Centralwhose “unforeseen departure” this week triggered a new fall of the National Electrical System (SEN), will soon be maintenance capital with a view to solving accumulated problems for years.
The work in the largest unit block in Cuba – who yesterday suffered another fault, although it could be reconnected – will begin at the end of 2025 and will run for six months, according to Alfredo López Valdés, general director of the Electric Union (UNE), who did not specify an exact date for the disconnection of the Guiteras.
During an intervention in the program Round table, The manager explained Deep jobs will be carried out in the boiler, which must improve their operation in the future, but clarified that “it cannot be said that it will be a new boiler”, since all its elements will be replaced.
Among the planned works is the complete change of the reheating – which, as detailed, “has 15 kilometers of pipe” -, as well as an important part of the regenerative heaters, the air and gase ducts, the burners and the pumps of the economizer.
In addition, a chemical to the boiler will be carried out “to protect its future operation once the work is completed.”
You must also work in the turbine – including its cylinders, valves and chumaceras -, change auxiliary equipment, incorporate high pressure heaters and finish the assembly of filtering systems and the “change of circulation seawater ducts”, which are used to cool the steam that comes out of the turbine.
More than 15 years later
Although in recent years it has been subjected to several scheduled maintenance and repairs after its not a few breakdowns, Guiteras accumulates more than 15 years without receiving general maintenance in depth.
In the particular case of the boiler, it has not received capital maintenance since the plant was inaugurated in 1988, As explained Last July the journalist José Miguel Solís, who usually informs about the work in thermoelectric of Matanzas.
The maintenance that apparently will finally be executed before the end of 2025 had been several times postponed in the middle of the prolonged economic and energy crisis on the island and the accentuated lack of currencies to execute a task of this size.
In June, When announcing A technical stop of the plant for the summer, its director, Rubén Campos Olmo, said that it is already working on the logistics of a “great intervention” scheduled for the end of the year, in which it would work in components such as the boiler, the turbine and the generator.
He explained that there was a project to install a desalination plant in the thermoelectric plant, in search of industrial sustainability and water independence, but pointed out that this project was still “waiting for financing”.
This Thursday, the general director of the UNE did not refer to the installation of that plant among the works provided for in the next capital maintenance, at least according to the review of Cubadebate.
Cuba crosses an aggravation of its energy crisis, with blackouts of 20 and more hours in localities of the island and five total falls of SEN in less than a year, the most recent this week.
This Friday, a day after the country’s reconnection, It binds it A maximum affectation of 1595 MW in the night peak, while the availability will be just 1775 MW, with eight units stopped due to breakdowns or maintenance, 354 MW out of service for thermal limitations and 44 distributed generation plants without working due to lack of fuel.
