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Last Friday night, Havana and several provinces across the country suffered a massive blackout. That same afternoon, the first batch of materials donated by the Chinese government for the construction of seven solar farms totaling 35 MW arrived in Artemisa province. In addition to the recent history of three widespread outages in the Cuban energy system, which occurred toward the end of last year, we must add last Fridays, when a failure at an electrical substation on the outskirts of Havana caused a significant loss of generation in the western part of the island, leading to the collapse of the National Electric System (SEN). Power outages are primarily due to fuel shortages and aging electrical infrastructure. Electricity is crucial for cooking and pumping water in many parts of the island, exacerbating the impact of these blackouts on Cubans daily lives. Furthermore, the energy crisis has been a trigger for social unrest, with anti-government protests in recent years. Donation from China That same Friday, the Chinese government also delivered a first batch of donations for the construction of seven solar parks in Cuba, which will add 35 MW to the SEN (National Electricity System). These parks will be located in provinces such as Artemisa—where the delivery ceremony took place—Pinar del Río, Las Tunas, Holguín, Granma, and Guantánamo. According to Chinas ambassador to Cuba, Hua Xin, this project, agreed upon last December , will not only provide renewable energy, but will also help reduce fossil fuel consumption by approximately 18,000 tons per year. A second batch of materials is expected to arrive on the island at the end of March, completing the remaining resources during the first half of this year. In the last week of February, the first two solar parks were inaugurated as part of the governments plan to build 55 photovoltaic plants using Chinese technology this year, totaling more than 1,200 MW . The first of the parks, the 21.87 MW Nursing School , was inaugurated by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel. In March of last year, Vicente de la O Levy, head of Cubas Ministry of Energy and Mines (Minem), declared that the government plans to install 92 solar parks, totaling 2,000 MW of installed capacity by 2028. According to official data, Cuba currently has an installed photovoltaic capacity of approximately 260 MW, responsible for about 2% of the countrys annual electricity generation. The official goal is to achieve 24% renewable energy penetration by 2030. |
