Cuba’s power grid failed and the entire nation was plunged into darkness on Friday, a day after the government stressed the need to shut down the economy to save power in the face of major gasoline shortages and large-scale regular outages.
Cuba’s Energy Ministry reported a nationwide blackout on Friday morning after a failure at a thermoelectric plant in Matanzas, east of Havana.
Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz held a late-night televised address with state officials to discuss the current electricity crisis, which experts said was the worst the nation – long accustomed to food and power shortages – had ever experienced.
For weeks, large parts of the country have been without power for 15 to 20 hours due to lack of fuel to run the power grid.
When the power returns, demand increases, further straining the power grid, Mr. Marrero urged people Thursday night to cut back on use.
To ease the pressure on the power grid, authorities announced on Thursday night that all schools would be closed until Monday, and cultural and non-essential activities such as nightclubs would be closed.
Accordingly, only essential personnel should go to work A notice was issued Some government websites said hospitals would remain open. Any non-essential power consuming service will be suspended.
“In other words, we are freezing economic activity,” Mr. Marrero said. Officials said they were investigating the cause of the failure at the power plant in Madanzas.
Cuba has long struggled with an aging and poorly maintained infrastructure that can’t produce the megawatts it needs for its nearly 11 million people.
Cuba has traditionally depended on Venezuela for imports, but as supplies from that country dwindle, it has begun looking to Mexico and Russia in recent years. A severe economic crisis and the cash shortages it created made it difficult for Cuba to pay for those fuel imports.
For more than a year, there has been a huge shortage of petrol, leading to long queues at petrol stations. The government has warned of massive hikes in fuel and electricity prices to raise funds and reduce public consumption.
The crisis worsened recently when bad weather conditions prevented the unloading of fuel supplies from oil tankers, Mr. Marrero said. Cuba’s energy infrastructure is in poor shape, but fuel shortages are the biggest factor in the current problem, he said.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel accused the US trade embargo against Cuba of restricting the country’s ability to import fuel, creating a government deficit and imposing hardship on the Cuban people.
Miriam Leyva, a disaffected journalist in Havana, said the lack of electricity was so bad that Mr. Marrero’s own video news conference was delayed for several hours, which viewers assumed was the result of problems with the power grid.
He said the fact that the country’s usually secretive leaders took to the airways to share detailed updates underscored the severity of the crisis and showed government officials were nervous and desperate.
Due to an authoritarian government, widespread gasoline shortages and rising food prices, more than 600,000 Cubans have fled to the United States since 2022, according to US data.
“This is an unprecedented situation,” Ms. Leyva said, referring to the energy crisis. “The worst part is they don’t know when they’re going to solve it, or how.”
The problem was particularly acute outside Havana, where people were without power for long periods, Ms. Leyva said. (The U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay operates under its own independent power grid, a spokeswoman there said.)
The Cuban government appears to be trying to meet the challenge by limiting the length of strikes in Havana neighborhoods that fear popular uprisings, Ms. Leyva said. After a particularly difficult period in 2021, when tens of thousands of people across the country took to the streets in protest, the government seemed keen to avoid a show of discontent.
Ms Leiva said she went to a bakery for bread on Friday and found none.
“No bread, they don’t know when,” she said. “Sometimes it’s because there’s no flour. Today it is because there is no electricity.
Alfredo López Valdés, director general of the National Electricity Company, said the country was working on solutions, but said they would not come quickly.
“We are struggling; We are not sitting on our hands,” said Mr. Lopez said. “We know the situation is very difficult.”
Carol Rosenberg Contributed report.
