School and work activities will resume, but Cuban officials say the rolling policy, a five-hour daily blackout, will continue.
Cuba’s national power grid has been reconnected but still struggles to meet demand, officials say Nationwide darkness Millions of people were left without electricity for hours.
The National Electric Union (UNE) said on Thursday that generation had increased to 1,450 megawatts (MW), still less than half of the normal peak demand of 3,200MW.
“(The grid) is working normally now, but because of the lack of generation we don’t have enough capacity to cover the demand,” said Lázaro Guerra, who oversees the sector at Cuba’s energy ministry.
This week’s nationwide blackout – the third in less than two months – occurred early Wednesday after the country’s top electricity producer, the Antonio Guiteras power plant in Matanzas, shut down.
That set off a chain reaction, overwhelming an already stressed power system and leaving the capital, Havana, in darkness.
Cuba’s oil plants are decades old and have struggled to operate, but this year has brought additional struggles, as oil imports from Venezuela, Russia and Mexico have dwindled.
Half of the Caribbean nation’s power generation facilities are offline for maintenance or down, and the majority of Cuba’s residents experience hours-long, rolling blackouts every day even though the grid is functional.
On Thursday, classes and work activities gradually returned to normal following a nationwide blackout.
The local electric company said power had returned to all “circuits” in Havana, and all of its hospitals were online.
But Cuban officials have said they will continue their current practice of implementing daily five-hour blackouts by bloc or zone, as they have done for the past few months amid the energy crisis.
Cuban Power Grid It has collapsed many times When fuel supplies dwindled in October and Hurricane Oscar hit the island’s far eastern tip, prompting authorities to close schools and non-essential workplaces.
In November, Hurricane Raphael Hit the grid again It made landfall on the island as a Category 3 storm.
