In Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución district, neighbors have been without electricity for more than 50 hours
14ymedio, Havana, 8 November 2024 — Two days after the impact of Hurricane Rafael in western Cuba and the consequent total collapse of the national energy system (SEN), there are still populated areas of the Island without power. Artemisa and Pinar del Río, the provinces most affected by the hurricane, have not even been able to connect. In most localities they barely have internet or cell phone service.
“They have not even been able to leave their block due to the amount of branches, tiles and other objects that are lying everywhere,” says a Cuban from Alquízar who has now emigrated to the United States and has learned about his relatives through a friend who was able to find a place where he had a little signal. “The neighbors are taking care of the damage, without electricity and water. No agency or official has yet passed by to evaluate damage or distribute food,” he said early this Friday.
Alquízar is one of the places that Miguel Díaz-Canel later visited. There, the president said, “the people work intensely without neglecting the recovery of their community.”
The rest of the provinces, according to the Director of Electricity of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, Lázaro Guerra Hernández, “are interconnected to the SEN,” although this does not mean restoration of the electrical service either. In Havana, the official continued, “there are several circuits that are affected by the passage of the hurricane, and in the rest of the country, the effects are due to the generation deficit.”
A total of 90 electricity poles collapsed in Havana as the hurricane passed, including 30 in Cerro and Plaza de la Revolución
According to the Havana Electric Company, it has barely been possible to serve 50 primary distribution circuits of the 337 existing in the capital, as well as eight hospital circuits and two water supply circuits. “We are at 15.1% recovery,” the authorities acknowledged.
A total of 90 electricity poles collapsed in Havana as the hurricane passed, including 30 in Cerro and Plaza de la Revolución. In this last municipality, where the newsroom of 14ymedio is located, residents have been without electricity since Wednesday around 8:30 am, more than 50 hours. The luckiest take advantage of the sun this Friday to charge their generators with solar panels.
In other areas, such as Holguín, they breathe a sigh of relief because “the blackout did not last as long as before,” according to a neighbor, referring to the previous system crash on October 18. Although there are still municipalities in that eastern province without electricity, power was returned to the city of Holguín on Thursday afternoon. “What is a crime is that they are taking advantage of the situation to sell coal for 2,000 pesos,” laments the same source. “We are on the verge of collapse.”
A comment on the networks of the Unión Eléctrica de Cuba (UNE) expressed the mood: “We have suffered 10 days of hell, without help from the West, with 15 to 24 hours of daily blackouts. Hopefully we will have a few days of peace and power in eastern Cuba.”
From Sancti Spíritus, a collaborator of this newspaper reports that the service “is stabilizing”: there is electricity for two, four or five hours, but “without planning.”
Regarding the thermoelectric power plants, Guerra Hernández reported: “Guiteras [Matanzas] is in service; a unit of the Felton [Holguín] is online; two units in Nuevitas [Camagüey]; unit number three of Santa Cruz del Norte [Mayabeque]; and today we must start unit number 1 and that of Renté [Santiago de Cuba]. The engines of Moa [Holguín] are in service, and the generation capacity will increase. It may also be possible to increase generation in Havana’s floating power plants.”
The map with which the official press illustrates the “recovery of the SEN” corroborates that the Máximo Gómez thermoelectric plant in Mariel, the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes in Cienfuegos and the Renté still do not work. Two floating power plants are also turned off: Mariel and Santiago de Cuba, which run on fuel.
Thus, the implementation of “microsystems” or “energy islands” is vital. The first one that managed to establish itself this Thursday after the passage of Rafael was that of Matanzas, thanks to Energás Varadero. It is an electric plant with a generation capacity of 173 megawatts (MW), one of the three operated on the Island by the Canadian company Sherritt International in association with the UNE.
As William Pitt, heir to several mines expropriated by Fidel Castro in 1960 and analyst of the regime’s mining businesses observes, the power plants of Sherritt “are probably the best maintained,” in addition to being “very important for Cuba,” since they supply electricity for the most important tourist center of the country, Varadero, and to several parts of Havana, as well as supplying natural gas that is sent by pipeline to the capital.
Cuba pays Sherritt with cobalt for the work done by Energás in Varadero and the other two power plants
“That Varadero plant uses the oil and gas produced by the oil wells that Sherritt operates north of Cárdenas and southwest of Varadero,” Pitt continues. “Cuba has no money to pay Sherritt for those services, and that is why Cuba, instead of a monetary payment, has granted Sherritt the right to extract and take possession, without having to pay the Government, of nickel and cobalt ore from the mines that Sherritt operates in Moa (which include my family’s mines),” he says.
That is, Cuba pays Sherritt with cobalt for the work it does in Energás in Varadero and in the other two power plants that operate in Puerto Escondido, with 20 MW, and in Boca de Jaruco, with 313 MW.
The circumstances make fuel supplies from abroad more vital than ever. The Ocean Mariner tanker, from the Mexican port of Tampico and loaded with crude oil from that country, managed to dock in Santiago de Cuba on Tuesday, before the impact of Hurricane Rafael. The cargo of the ship Alicia, which left the port of José, in Venezuela, is also expected on Tuesday. The oil tankers, the University of Texas specialist Jorge Piñón explained to this newspaper, were sheltered in anticipation of Rafael, but are now on the move again. The Vilma left Cienfuegos and is back in the port of Pajaritos-Coatzacoalcos, in Mexico.
The UNE has not published its daily report for two days, but it is almost not necessary. Cubans assume that at least until Sunday the “normality” of the scheduled blackouts will not return.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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