What you should know about the nationwide power outage in Cuba

Cuba is suffering a nationwide blackout after its power grid collapsed. Power was out across the island on Friday, just days before Tropical Storm Oscar hit the island as a Category 1 hurricane on Sunday.

Although power has been partially restored in some areas, including much of Havana, millions of people – particularly in rural areas and eastern provinces that bore the brunt of hurricane damage – are still without power as of Tuesday.

The blackout is the culmination of decades of disinvestment, an economic crisis and global factors affecting the country's oil supplies, and there appears to be no long-term solution to the crisis.

The Cuban government regularly imposes hour-long power outages in various parts of the country in order to conserve the fuel needed to run electricity plants. But the current outage is different. It was triggered by an outage in one of the country's aging power plants and is affecting all areas of ordinary people's lives: they cannot cool or light their homes, food spoils in refrigerators, they cannot cook and many have no access to water for drinking or washing .

Although the situation has now reached a crisis point, it is a tragedy that has unfolded over time and underscores Cuba's fragile economy, its development needs and its tenuous place in world politics.

The crisis began in earnest at midday Friday when the Antonio Guiteras power plant, one of the country's largest, went offline. Seven of the country's eight thermoelectric power plants that generate electricity for the island were not operating or undergoing maintenance before the Guiteras power plant failed. When the Guiteras plant closed, there were no more sources of energy.

Since Friday's outage, the power grid has completely or partially collapsed three more times.

The government blamed the failure on a combination of high electricity demand, poorly maintained power plants, a lack of fuel to power them and strict US sanctions. Officials, including Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, have promised that the government is working around the clock to restore power on the island.

The government has restored some hospitals to full operation, but others are running on generators, a luxury most Cubans cannot afford. This could become a problem the longer the power outage lasts as the fuel required to run the generators becomes scarce.

According to energy authorities, much of the capital Havana was back online as of Monday. Technicians also restored functionality to the Antonio Guiteras power plant and provided at least partial electricity to other regions, although the eastern tip of the island is still offline as of this writing.

Cuba's power grid is so fragile due to a combination of factors: lack of investment in infrastructure (of all types, not just the grid); lack of access to fuel to operate power plants; These include, above all, the more difficult access to the world market.

The Cuban government's inability or unwillingness to maintain the country's electric utilities is the direct cause of the blackouts; With most thermal power plants out of commission for one reason or another, Cuba relied on a single power plant to power the island – sparking this week's crisis.

But a broader problem has to do with the Cuban economy and its ability to get the fuel it needs to run its power plants.

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba essentially traded its sugar for oil from the USSR. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Cuba suffered from oil shortages and an economic crisis until Hugo Chávez was elected President of Venezuela and began offering oil to Cuba at a below-market price in exchange for Cuban medical services.

“Nowadays you are witnessing a situation where all these countries have their own problems to deal with. Russia is negotiating with Ukraine. Venezuela is struggling with its own civil unrest,” Daniel Pedreira, professor of politics and international studies at Florida International University, told Vox. Russia, Venezuela and Mexico still supply Cuba with oil, but it is simply not enough to meet the country's needs.

Without access to discounted fuel, the Cuban government had to turn to the free market. But fuel is more expensive there and the country is short of money. Cuba has little access to foreign exchange reserves due to low exports. Additionally, two key sources of foreign exchange – foreign remittances and tourism – declined under the Trump administration and the Covid-19 pandemic after the US imposed new restrictions on US-Cuba relations and travel restrictions to curb the spread of stop diseases.

The power outage itself is a crisis, but Sunday's hurricane makes it worse. Oscar struck the eastern province of Guantánamo, causing unprecedented flooding given the region's extremely dry climate. The ongoing power outage has hampered efforts to evacuate the region and complicated search and rescue efforts. Six people have reportedly been killed in the area since the Oscar hit, but the circumstances of their deaths are unclear.

In the rest of the country, some Cubans protested in the streets despite strong warnings from Díaz-Canel, who said in a public address that such actions would not be tolerated and “will be prosecuted with the rigor of revolutionary laws.” superior.”

At present, the protests do not appear to have developed into a mass movement for political change. According to Pedreira, Cubans do not seem to view Díaz-Canel with the same regard as the Castro regime. However, the regime has considerable power to use violence against protesters and crackdowns on dissidents have increased in recent years.

“If these blackouts really continue for a longer period of time and are actually the trigger for a political change or some kind of mass uprising, will Cuban troops then shoot Cuban civilians en masse?” Pedreira said. “We would have to wait and see whether it happens or not. But as far as the capacity and ability to do it, (the government) definitely can.”

Even if there were a clear call for regime change, according to William LeoGrande, a professor of government and specialist in Latin American affairs at American University, there would be nothing to change.

“Discontent has increased and is quite widespread at the moment, (but) there is no real organized opposition,” LeoGrande said. “The government makes it much easier for you to leave the country than to stay there and be a dissident. And that's what people do. And even ordinary people who are just unhappy and fed up tend to just leave.”

This crisis could fuel another exodus; An estimated 1 million Cubans have left the country in the past three years, the largest such migration in the country's history. A Havana-based economist, Omar Everleny, told the New York Times that he is already noticing a new wave of emigration: “Everyone who has been thinking about leaving the country is now moving forward with those plans.” Now you hear: “I will mine Sell ​​the house and leave.”

LeoGrande suspects that the government and those who remain “will struggle through because they always seem to find a way to get through.”