This Thursday an absolute record was reached since records began, with a deficit of 2,158 megawatts, 70% of demand.
14ymedio, Madrid, March 6, 2026 – Tonight, when peak electricity demand in Cuba arrives, estimated at 3,050 megawatts (MW), the country will only be generating 1,015, just over a third of what it needs. That amount, representing around a 68% deficit (2,075 MW), would be a record on paper, although it remains to be seen whether reality will surpass the forecast. Last night saw the greatest shortage since records began, when at 7:00 in the evening, during peak hours, demand was 3,055 MW and only 920 were produced, a deficit of 2,158, or 70%.
These figures easily surpass those that previously held the record, earlier this same week. On Monday a deficit of 64% was expected, surpassing the 63% of January 30, with the same percentage recorded this Wednesday when the system collapsed in western and central Cuba.
Last November, the Government announced that the Antonio Guiteras power plant would go offline, which was postponed shortly afterward for an “unpostponable” repair. At the time, Cubans trembled at the thought of what would become of them, already exhausted by very long blackouts, when the country’s largest thermoelectric plant, located in Matanzas, stopped providing service. In February came the first test, when the plant suffered two incidents that kept it out of the system for a total of 12 days, amid alarm over the U.S. oil blockade.
Last November, the Government announced the shutdown of the Antonio Guiteras plant, which was postponed shortly afterward for an “unpostponable” repair.
But the biggest rehearsal came Wednesday, when a serious failure disconnected two-thirds of the Island from the National Electric System (SEN), from Camagüey to Pinar del Río, because there is less and less diesel left with which to restore the system. Specialists from the Electric Union acknowledged this on Thursday, saying this was the reason reconnection was proving more complicated than on other occasions.
The method, now more than familiar to engineers, consists of starting engines with fuel oil and creating energy islands that gradually begin feeding circuits of increasing size until everything is reintegrated into the SEN. Now, however, saying that resources are limited would be a serious understatement.
Although shortly after 5:00 in the morning yesterday the system was unified, the situation remained extremely precarious throughout the day. In Havana there were no school activities, affecting at least 300,000 students who had to remain at home. Problems were also reported with the water supply due to failures in pumping stations, and there were constant interruptions in the manufactured gas service that reaches hundreds of thousands of households in the capital.
In most of the affected provinces, cuts to telephone and internet services were also constant, since these antennas also operate on electrical power. But the worst part is that even after the situation passed, the problems do not ease, since for the population it makes little difference whether the lack of electricity is due to a massive blackout, a regional failure, or a scheduled outage. “The national electric system has finally arrived at its end. No one can fix it now. Cuba is in darkness. Now we will see how much longer the people can endure without electricity, without food, and without communication,” lamented one user in response to the Electric Union’s forecast for this Friday.
“The national electric system has finally arrived at its end. No one can fix it now. Cuba is in darkness. Now we will see how much longer the people can endure without electricity, without food, and without communication.”
Thermal generation, according to the state report, has 293 MW out of service due to breakdowns in unit 5 of the Mariel thermoelectric plant, units 2 and 3 of Santa Cruz del Norte, unit 2 of Felton, and units 5 and 6 of the Antonio Maceo plant, in addition to the Antonio Guiteras plant, which is still cooling down so technicians can begin analyzing exactly what happened on Wednesday and apply yet another patch.
In addition, unit 6 of Mariel, unit 5 of the Nuevitas thermoelectric plant, and unit 4 of the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes plant in Cienfuegos remain under maintenance. Although solar power helps and is expected to deliver 228 MW at maximum capacity today, the problem is that these 51 solar parks—actually producing more than the Guiteras plant—still cannot store that energy, which is lost when the sun sets due to the lack of batteries.
The Electric Union has announced that during peak hours 45 MW from the fuel engines in Mariel will be added. The big question is where that minimal fuel is coming from, since the date predicted by experts when there would be no diesel left on the Island has already arrived. Something similar happened this Friday at the Cuatro Caminos store in Havana, which could not open until around 11 in the morning, when a small amount of fuel appeared to power the generator. No one knows where it came from.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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