The announcement that the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plantin Matanzas, will have to be disconnected for three months for a comprehensive repair definitively removes the promise of Miguel Diaz-Canel about the end of blackouts by December.
Outdated and faulty technology, natural disasters and increasingly serious breakdowns, added to the impossibility of thorough maintenance, make it impossible for the country’s largest thermoelectric plant to operate. Its directors have received a “broadcast of bad news”, lamented the official reporter Lázaro Manuel Alonso in a report on Cuban television.
According to Alonso, Guiteras is facing a dilemma: the progressive collapse of tubes, boilers and equipment, which makes it necessary to suspend services for 90 days, and on the other hand, the impossibility of stopping generation “in the current circumstances “. At the moment, the journalist argued, the only thing left to do is “innovate”, a euphemism that the directors do not stop demanding from the plant’s technical staff, until “better times” arrive.
It is not uncommon that, given the collapse of the plant and institutional pressure, many of its workers have decided to “emigrate” not only outside the Island, but to other less demanding and better paid positions in Etecsa or outside the state sector. In addition, Alonso admits, there is a serious “salary demotivation”, since most technicians earn around 6,700 pesos, an insignificant figure in the midst of the inflation that the Island is experiencing.
The progressive collapse of tubes, boilers and equipment, which makes it necessary to suspend services for 90 days, and on the other hand, the impossibility of stopping generation “in the current circumstances”
“After the reordering, we fell into a very low step,” lamented Yoandry Flores, one of the operators of the thermoelectric plant. Before, the Electric Union enjoyed good salaries, which covered its “needs,” he said.
“Despite everything,” justifies the reporter, “its workers, with low wages, now keep the unit online with more than 230 megawatts (MW),” a generation capacity that has shown little stability in recent weeks.
The plant managed to enter the National Electric System (SEN) this Tuesday, after repairing a breakdown in the boiler. However, it is still essential to clean the structure and replace several of its connecting tubes.
“You work with risk and tension,” said Javier Quiroz, one of the managers interviewed by Alonso.
Meanwhile, the balance of the collapse of the SEN continues to be measured in hours of blackout, which reach twelve per day in most of the Island. Not even the continuous protests and cacerolazosNeither the dismissal of the Minister of Energy and Mines and the director of the Electric Union have solved the island’s energy crisis.
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