Despite the resilience that Cubans have developed to endure massive power outages, Saturday witnessed disruptions surpassing 1,300 megawatts, intensifying the silent frustration pervading a nation under the rule of an inept regime clinging to power.
As many feared and has become commonplace, the power cuts exceeded the forecasts by Cuba's Electric Union (UNE), which had estimated "an impact of 1,221 MW during peak hours." On Sunday, in its informative note, the state-run company led by Alfredo López Valdés admitted that Saturday's outages reached 1,325 MW at 9:10 PM, which is 104 MW above the expected, according to official calculations (which many Cubans doubt).
"Yesterday, the service was affected by a generation capacity deficit for the entire 24 hours, and this has continued throughout this morning," the UNE, which holds the monopoly on electricity supply in Cuba, acknowledged again, showing little respect and consideration for its captive customers.
The situation remains the same or worse in the early hours of this Sunday. At 7:00 AM, a generation capacity deficit causing 829 MW of outages was already reported. "During midday, an impact of 980 MW is estimated due to the deficit," the UNE added in its social media report.
The breakdowns in unit 2 of the Felton thermoelectric plant and unit 5 of the Renté plant are compounded by the maintenance of unit 2 in Santa Cruz. However, the day brings new incidents in the collapsed national electro-energetic system (SEN). If the previous day reported the disconnection and low deliveries of three floating power plants ("Turkish barges" stationed in the Bay of Havana, Santiago de Cuba, and the port of Mariel), the UNE reported this Sunday that the issues in these infrastructures result in "impacts" amounting to 289 MW.
The fuel shortage keeps 47 distributed generation plants offline, which fail to contribute 267 MW to the SEN. Additionally, it leaves the "Santiago de Cuba barge, the Regla barge, and engines on the Melones barge" stranded. According to the UNE, the fuel scarcity is responsible for a shortfall of 556 MW in the SEN, nearly 17% of the calculated demand.
"Given this forecast, a peak hour availability of 2,092 MW and a maximum demand of 3,300 MW is estimated, resulting in a deficit of 1,208 MW. Therefore, if the anticipated conditions persist, an impact of 1,278 MW is predicted for this period," the UNE concluded, leaving the possibility open that this Sunday could be even bleaker than the previous day.