“This is another general blackout, which they have not wanted to recognize,” denounces activist Adelth Bonne from the 10 de Octubre municipality.
MADRID, Spain.- The crisis of the National Electric System (SEN) is serious this Monday, December 8, with prolonged outages throughout the country, including Havana, where up to 16 consecutive hours have been recorded without electrical service.
This was recognized by the official journalist Lázaro Manuel Alonso on your Facebook profile: “Critical situation in the operation of the National Electrical System. Prolonged outages in all territories, including Havana. In the last day, up to 16 continuous hours of blackouts have been reported in the capital.”
According to the Information Note issued by the Electrical Union (UNE), yesterday the service was affected 24 hours a day. The maximum impact due to a deficit in generation capacity reached 2,084 MW at 6:10 p.m. The production of the 33 new photovoltaic solar parks was 2,602 MWh, with a maximum power delivered of 495 MW at midday.
At 6:00 a.m. this Monday, the availability of the SEN was only 1,075 MW compared to a demand of 2,495 MW, which caused an immediate impact of 1,450 MW. For the average schedule, a deficit close to 1,300 MW was estimated.
The official report details multiple breakdowns in thermoelectric plants: Unit 5 of the CTE Máximo Gómez, Unit 3 of the CTE of Cienfuegos, Unit 6 of the CTE Diez de Octubre, Units 1 and 2 of the CTE Felton and Units 5 and 6 of the CTE Renté. Added to this are maintenance in Units 2 and 3 of the CTE Santa Cruz and Unit 4 of the CTE Carlos Manuel de Céspedes.
Furthermore, the UNE recognizes serious limitations due to lack of fuel. In total, 100 distributed generation plants, with 890 MW, were out of service for this reason, along with five Moa Fuel engines (68 MW) and another 83 MW unavailable due to lack of lubricant. Altogether, 1,041 MW were affected solely by supply problems.
For the night peak hour, the state company forecasts the entry of an additional 193 MW, but still estimates an availability of only 1,268 MW compared to a maximum demand of 3,300 MW, with a deficit of 2,032 MW and a projected impact of 2,062 MW.
“This is another general blackout”
From the neighborhoods, the situation is described as critical. He activist Adelth Bonneresident in the 10 de Octubre municipality, told CubaNet: “Here in the municipality of 10 de Octubre, the last 72 hours have been the worst. Before yesterday they turned off the power all day and put it on at 11:00 at night and at 12 at night there was no power again, we had a single hour of power. They put it back on yesterday around 9:00 in the morning until around 2:00 in the afternoon. At that time it left and returned at 6:00 in the morning of today.”
Bonne also denounced effects on health services: “Even the circuit of the Coco y Rabi polyclinic was turned off for a long time last night, they came to turn it on at around 4:00 in the morning. And that has been the motherhood here on October 10.” As he explained, currently only one electrical block receives service a few hours a day, while the others remain completely off.
“This is another general blackout, which they (the authorities) have not wanted to recognize, because this is not common. In block 2, three hours of power a day is not common,” he stated. Added to this is the total drop in telecommunications during the cuts: “And when the power goes out, the entire internet goes out, you can’t open a single photo.” “It seems that what ETECSA has invested in is repression, in trucks to repress people,” he added.
The activist pointed out that in the east of the country the situation is even more serious: “In my family’s house they are spending 36 hours without electricity. They turn on the light every other day, and only three hours when they turn it on.” He also questioned the government’s announcements about solar energy: “December is closing and not even a day does the deficit go down and every day it is worse, it is worse than last year.”
