Cuba will increase its energy output by six times its current production an official with the Energy and Mining Ministry said at an International Forum on Renewable Energy underway in Havana.

The director of Renewable Energy Department Rosell Guerra said that only four percent of the country´s total energy output is based on renewable sources, a figure expected to increase to 24 percent over the next few years, since power generation in Cuba is highly dependent on fossil fuels.

Cuba is implementing a new energy policy aimed at developing renewable sources between 2014 and 2013. This program includes the setting up of 13 wind farms with a 633-megawatt generation capacity, plus 19 bio-electric plants with 755-megawatt capacity based on the processing biomass and sugar cane waste. And this program also includes the use of solar panels to generate another 700 megawatts to reach a total energy generation of 2 thousand 100 megawatts, which requires a investment calculated at 3.7 billion dollars.

The country is also exploiting 22 small hydro-electric plants as another 74 will be built. The official addressed the energy supply in the residential sector by explaining that 74 thousand 478 family houses in mountainous areas do not have electricity, standing for 1.9 percent of all Cuban homes.