HAVANA — Cuba’s electrical system collapsed Saturday, leaving the island in a nationwide blackout for the third time this month as officials contended with aging infrastructure and shortages of fuel.
The state-run Cuban Electric Union, part of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, initially reported a total outage without identifying a cause. Later the ministry said an unexpected failure of a generating unit at the Nuevitas thermoelectric plant in Camagüey set off a cascading shutdown of other online units. Authorities said they activated isolated “micro-islands” of generation to supply emergency power to hospitals, water treatment and other critical sites while repair crews worked to restore service.
Widespread and regional outages have grown more frequent over the past two years amid deteriorating equipment and recurring rolling blackouts tied to fuel shortfalls. Those scheduled or unscheduled interruptions can last up to 12 hours and further stress the grid. Saturday’s outage came after a nationwide blackout on Monday and was the second in a single week.
The repeated power failures have immediate effects on daily life: reduced work hours, interrupted cooking, spoiled refrigerated food and, in some cases, canceled surgeries. President Miguel Díaz‑Canel has said Cuba has received no foreign oil shipments for three months; the country produces roughly 40 percent of the fuel it needs.
The government blames both a decaying domestic network and what it calls a U.S. energy blockade. U.S. policies have included warnings of penalties for countries supplying oil to Cuba and demands for political concessions, and the loss of Venezuelan shipments after political changes there has also curtailed a critical source of petroleum.