Havana, October 21 (RHC)-- The lack of fuel due to U.S. pressures against Cuba is the main cause of the electricity shortage in the country, a report from the Granma newspaper said on Monday. "This is a situation that is suffered on a daily basis on the island in the energy sector."
The failures of the National Electric System (SEN), after the total collapse last Friday, are due to the weakening of this system, said the Cuban Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, when appearing before national and foreign media.
He explained that, in previous days, blackouts of many hours were already observed, with an impact of more than a thousand megawatts (MW), whose main reason is the lack of fuel for generation.
Some 900 megawatts (MW) cannot be produced by mobile and distributed generation due to this cause, so electricity is mainly delivered from thermoelectric plants and Energás plants.
Regarding the first total system failure, De la O Levy explained that it was caused by a breakdown in the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, but any plant could have failed and the same thing would have happened.
So, how can we get things back up and running? the newspaper asks. Faced with this question, the head of Energy and Mines commented that, after the System failure, electricity must be generated, because a thermoelectric plant does not start up on its own.
For this, there is an emergency protocol, with the Energás units. This is an extremely complex operation, because there are many variables that affect it, he replied (in addition, there must be a balance between consumption and generation, he said).
Before the last collapse, which occurred around 17:00 local time on Sunday, a significant part of the System had been restored, since units from the Guiteras and Santa Cruz thermoelectric plants, the Melones and Regla skids were online, and the start-up of the skid and the Mariel units had begun.
In the Central and Eastern microsystem, Nuevitas was also online and the Lidio Ramón Pérez Thermoelectric Power Plant (CTE) in Felton, in Holguín, was starting up, which was fed by the Moa and Nuevitas skids.
De la O Levy stated that fuel was resolved for the mobile and distributed generation groups, in order to achieve greater vitality and robustness to the system.
He insisted that the cause of the fuel shortage is the brutal economic, commercial and financial siege imposed by the United States blockade.
He said that Cubans suffer this daily in the energy sector. Fuel is paid for in cash, and many times, having money in the banks means they cannot make the transactions because nobody wants to accept payments from Cuba. He noted that this happened with a liquefied petroleum gas ship, which was docked for almost a month.
The Minister of Energy and Mines stated that the technical situation of the thermoelectric plants and distributed generation remains tense, due to the years of exploitation, due to not being able to buy spare parts. The "newest" units have been in operation for more than 35 years, and are maintained thanks to the efforts of the workers.
