Cuba receives a floating power plant from Turkey

Cuba received a new Turkish floating power plant on Wednesday (1) to address its energy crisis.

The plant arrived in Havana Bay and is the eighth that Miguel Díaz-Canel‘s regime has awarded to the company Karandeniz Holding since 2019.

The platform, which flies the Turkish and Dominican flags, has a capacity of 240 megawatts (MW) and, according to the Ministry of Energy and Mines, “will mainly support electricity generation.

As such, they complement the thermoelectric power plants (CTEs) that generate more than half of the energy consumed in Cuba.

However, most of the eight CTEs on the island are over 40 years old, while the average age is 30.

In November, Cuba had already received another of these platforms.

At that time, a 110 MW power plant arrived on the MV Karadeniz Poweship Irem Sultan.

The arrival came a few days before Díaz-Canel’s trip to Istanbul as part of an international tour that also took him to Algeria, Russia, and China.

During his trip, he sought to strengthen the country’s energy sector by addressing “essential issues” in the field.

The Energy Ministry’s announcement on Wednesday came in a sensitive context for the island’s residents, who have been suffering daily power outages for months, making life there difficult.

In that context, Minister Vicente de la O Levy acknowledged in December that Cuba experienced a drop in electricity production “to unprecedented levels” in 2022.

These blackouts, which were frequent last year and in some cases lasted more than 10 hours, were due to the obsolescence of thermoelectric equipment, lack of fuel, breakdowns, and planned maintenance.

This, in turn, was exacerbated by high demand due to the hot summer, with the most critical situation occurring in October after the widespread power outage on the night of September 27.

At the end of the same month, Cuba was hit by Hurricane Ian, which wreaked havoc in the island’s western provinces, including Havana.

This caused great indignation among citizens, who took to the streets to protest for a solution and demand better living conditions, as they had done on previous occasions.

Following these incidents, however, authorities have asserted that the situation has improved since December.

Although the regime has acknowledged that power outages are still expected in the first months of 2023, it has claimed that they will be of shorter duration.

In this regard, the company Unión Eléctrica de Cuba (UNE) has warned in recent weeks of power outages in only 2% of the island during the afternoon and evening hours, the peak time of electricity consumption.

At the same time, unlike last year, they have not reported any “programmed” outages.