The energy crisis in Cuba reached a critical threshold this Monday. According to the records of the state Unión Eléctrica, approximately 64% of the country remains without supply simultaneouslysurpassing the historical maximum detected just last January.
This situation plunges the population into periods of darkness that reach 20 hours a day in various regions. The magnitude of the deficit shows a system unable to sustain the minimum productive and domestic structure of the nation.
Social unrest is triggered by absolute economic paralysis. Energy, the pillar of any modern society, is today a scarce and administered under extreme emergency conditions by the government from Havana.
Oil siege and technical abandonment
The origin of this collapse lies in a duality of factors that suffocate power generation. On the one hand, the oil restrictions imposed by the United States since the beginning of 2026 drastically limit the flow of external fuel.
On the other hand, thermoelectric infrastructure suffers the consequences of chronic underfinancing. Eight of the 16 main production units are out of service due to recurring breakdowns or forced maintenance.
These plants operate under conditions of excessive exploitation, unrelated to the investments necessary for their modernization. The use of national crude oil in these plants, despite being a sovereign alternative, is hindered by the impossibility of efficient refining on Cuban soil.
An energy mix in a state of paralysis
Distributed generation, historically responsible for 40% of the supply, remains inactive due to the total absence of diesel and fuel oil. This system of secondary engines depends exclusively on imports that the current siege prevents from happening.
The gap between demand and supply is abysmal. While the country requires more than 3,000 megawatts to function normally, the generation capacity barely exceeds a third of that figure.
The Cuban State describes this situation as “energy asphyxiation”blaming Washington’s sanctions directly. However, independent experts point out that centralized management of the sector has prevented technological evolution for decades.
Reconstruction and social impact
According to him compiled by EFE, Cleaning up the Cuban electrical system requires an estimated investment between 8,000 and 10,000 million dollars. This is an unattainable figure for an economy that has accumulated a contraction of 15% since the beginning of the decade.
Blackouts act as the main trigger for social protests in recent years. The lack of electrical current drags down the supply of water, the conservation of food and the operation of basic health services.
The government implements subsistence measures that, so far, are insufficient to reverse the trend. The island faces a survival challenge where the light seems to recede with each new breakdown in the obsolete power plants of the Ministry of Energy and Mines.
