• Submitted by: manso
• Business and Economy
• 01 / 25 / 2011

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HAVANA, Cuba, Jan 24 (acn) Workers from the Cuban sugar cane agribusiness sector contributed to the saving of oil during the so-called short sugar cane harvest,by exceeding by 8 % its plan of electric power generation with sugar cane biomass.

The head of the Institutional Communications Office, Liobel Perez, from the Sugar Ministry, told ACN that it also resulted in the surpassing of the sales to the National Electrical Power System.

He pointed out that the oil saving, from December 5 to 30, represented in a month the average consumption of more than 16700 households.

Perez mentioned that even though self-supply in the industrial sector reached 110 %; it remained below the plan in 0.1 %, given the total energy spending.

Several sugar enterprises during the current sugar cane harvest have met their commercialization estimates, he added.

The central Cuban province of Ciego de Avila was the only province unable to self-supply during this harvest due to low steam boilers' pressures in one of its sugar mills.

Sugar cane is one of the crops with the highest capacity to turn solar energy into biomass.

By using all the remaining bagasse and straw in the sugar cane plantations,there is biomass to produce energy approximately like a ton of oil per each ton of sugar.

There are already 37 sugar mills working and the Hector Molina in Mayabeque, and the America Libre in Santiago de Cuba, will soon join them.Economy/acm/aga/5.50 PM

Source: ACN