Cuba Blackout Alert: Grid Expects 2,000 MW Shortfall at Friday Peak
CUBA · ENERGY
Key Facts
- —The forecast Cuba’s state utility UNE expects 2,000 MW of peak-hour impact on Friday 11 September, with 1,330 MW available against 3,300 MW of demand.
- —Thursday’s reality The grid fell short by 2,267 MW at 8:40 p.m., worse than planned, after units in Cienfuegos and Felton tripped, and service was disrupted around the clock.
- —The dead plants Six big thermoelectric units are down for breakdowns or maintenance at Mariel, Felton, Renté, Santa Cruz and Nuevitas.
- —No fuel 106 distributed generators are offline for lack of fuel, and both of Havana’s floating power barges are out of service.
- —The year so far Cuba has suffered seven total national grid collapses in 2026, three of them in July alone and two within 24 hours in early August.
Cuba’s electricity utility has told 11 million people to expect a 2,000-megawatt hole in Friday night’s power supply — a shortfall so large it would leave three-fifths of peak demand unmet in a country where entire towns have already spent more than a hundred days without light.
Cuba’s Unión Eléctrica (UNE) forecast in its morning bulletin on Friday 11 September 2026 that the national grid would be unable to meet 2,000 MW of demand at the evening peak, the worst daily figure announced this week after 2,130 MW on Thursday.
The official note, republished by the state daily Granma, puts available generation at 1,330 MW against a forecast peak demand of 3,300 MW. In plain terms: when Cubans cook dinner tonight, the state expects to be missing about 60 percent of the electricity the country wants.
Thursday was already worse than planned. The deficit peaked at 2,267 MW at 8:40 p.m. — above the forecast — after unit 3 of the Cienfuegos plant and unit 1 of the Felton plant dropped offline, and the service was disrupted for the full 24 hours, UNE said.
What 2,000 MW Looks Like on the Ground
The abstract megawatt arithmetic translates into a geography of darkness. Havana’s electric company reported 51 circuits cut for generation deficit on Friday morning. In Sancti Spíritus province, 75 MW were offline across circuits in Banao, Mayajigua and Yaguajay. In Holguín, several circuits had passed 22 hours without power, according to the provincial utility’s own logs.
Independent tracker CiberCuba, which compiles the official provincial reports, recorded no active total collapse on Friday — the grid is technically “interconnected” — but that says nothing about how many homes actually have electricity. Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy has acknowledged that some Cuban settlements have gone more than a hundred days without power.
Frustration is spilling into the streets. In late July, women and children from the Havana neighbourhood known as El Fanguito blocked Avenida 23 until authorities restored power, and on Friday Cubans were protesting government plans to restrict the installation of private solar panels — the one workaround many households and small businesses have found, according to 14ymedio.
A Grid Running on Fumes
The official bulletin reads like a casualty list. Down for breakdowns: unit 5 at Máximo Gómez in Mariel, unit 2 at Lidio Ramón Pérez in Felton, and unit 6 at Antonio Maceo in Renté. In maintenance: another unit at Renté, plus units at Santa Cruz del Norte and the Diez de Octubre plant in Nuevitas. These are the workhorse thermoelectrics of the system — most of them decades old and cannibalised for parts.
The fuel picture is worse. UNE reports 106 distributed-generation plants — the diesel engines that are supposed to cover peak demand — out of service for lack of fuel. Both floating power barges moored in Havana Bay, the Regla and Melones units, are offline, as are the fuel-oil plants at Mariel and Moa. The only growth sector is solar: photovoltaic parks delivered 5,120 MWh on Thursday with a midday peak of 795 MW — useful at noon, irrelevant at 8:40 p.m.
Seven Collapses and Counting
The 2026 tally now stands at seven complete collapses of the national grid, according to CiberCuba’s running count: three in July within eight days, then two inside 24 hours on 2 and 3 August, when a frequency oscillation knocked the system back down just as engineers were restoring it. “We keep moving forward on the restoration of our system, overcoming all kinds of difficulties, with a total energy siege,” the energy minister wrote then — language that did little for households measuring outages in days.
Each collapse resets a slow, fragile reboot: microsystems island-by-island, hospitals and water pumps first, ordinary neighbourhoods last. Between collapses, the system simply runs a permanent deficit of 1,700 to 2,300 MW most evenings this month — Friday’s 2,000 MW forecast is, grimly, routine.
What It Means for Residents and Visitors
For foreigners in Cuba — a smaller group by the month, as The Rio Times reported with the collapse of tourism arrivals — the practical advice is unchanged: expect outages of 12 to 20 hours outside hotel cores, carry power banks and cash, and do not count on mobile data, since cell towers fail with the grid. Hotels that remain open run on diesel generators, which is why the fuel shortage hits them too.
There is no official horizon for improvement. The government blames the US sanctions “siege” for starving it of fuel and spare parts; independent analysts point to decades of underinvestment in plants that are now failing faster than they can be repaired. Both can be true at once — and neither will keep the lights on tonight.
Sources: Unión Eléctrica de Cuba, SEN bulletin 11 September 2026 · CiberCuba blackout tracker · 14ymedio · The Rio Times: Cuba tourism arrivals collapse
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