HAVANA — Cuba’s power grid collapsed Saturday, plunging the island into a nationwide blackout for the third time this month as authorities struggled with aging infrastructure and fuel shortages.
The state-run Cuban Electric Union, under the Ministry of Energy and Mines, first announced a total outage without an immediate cause and later said an unexpected failure of a generating unit at the Nuevitas thermoelectric plant in Camagüey triggered a cascading shutdown of other online units. The ministry reported it activated isolated “micro-islands” of generation to provide emergency power to hospitals, water systems and other vital centers while crews worked to restore service.
Nationwide and regional outages have become increasingly common over the past two years because of deteriorating equipment and routine rolling blackouts tied to fuel shortfalls that can last up to 12 hours and further destabilize the grid. Saturday’s blackout followed a nationwide outage on Monday and was the second this week.
The repeated blackouts disrupt daily life — reducing work hours, interrupting cooking, spoiling refrigerated food and in some cases forcing hospitals to cancel surgeries. President Miguel Díaz‑Canel has said Cuba has received no oil shipments from foreign suppliers for three months; the country produces about 40% of the fuel it needs.
The government blames both the decaying domestic network and what it calls a U.S. energy blockade. The Trump administration has warned of penalties for countries supplying oil to Cuba and has demanded political concessions, while the loss of Venezuelan shipments after the removal of that country’s leader has also curtailed a critical source of petroleum to the island.