The Island in the Dark: Cuba and its Blackouts

A view of Havana as nation-wide blackouts ravage the city. “A car drives along a street during a nationwide blackout caused by a grid failure in Havana, Cuba” CNN. Adalberto Roque/AFP/Getty Images


Cuba and its Current Situation
Cuba is a small island nation located in the Caribbean, just south of the state of Florida and the country of Bahamas. This island's main currency is the Cuban peso, however in many areas (especially larger cities), the US dollars or Euros are accepted. With a population of about 11 million, and the median age of 42.6 years old, the country's population has been rapidly declining. This is due to mass migration, with locals attempting to leave behind the worsening political instability and economic deterioration. Refined fuels and sugar make up the country's biggest exports, while tourism and other sectors in the hospitality industry make up 2/5ths of the population's jobs.

Unfortunately, Blackouts Aren’t a New Issue
Cuba runs off a system of various, usually oil-fired generation plants, with the largest ones being the Antonio Guiteras (Matanzas) and Felton (Holguín) which supply the most populated areas. Powerlines and the entire grid system as a whole isn’t maintained as much as it should be, with some areas experiencing minor blackouts daily. From 1959 to 1991, the country received most of its oil from the Soviet Union, supporting 95% of Cubans and an electricity consumption growth from 1500 GWh to 9700 GWh. Once the USSR collapsed, the country dealt with various electricity and food related issues, eventually turning to countries such as Venezuela and Russia for fuel. In recent times, both Venezuela and Russia have become less able to supply Cuba, due to each country's political and economic situations. This in turn has decreased the amount of energy available to the country. Cuba’s situation worsened from June to November, or during hurricane season where grids falter and electricity is even more sparse. In September 2022, during Hurrciane Ian the country’s power grid collapsed, as the category 3 hurricane caused systems to go offline.

A Much, Much Larger Problem
Though blackouts within the country have become common, ones of this scale are new. We can trace this problem back to October 2024 when Hurricane Milton delayed fuel delivery to the country, causing one of the largest power plants, Antonio Guiteras, to fail. During this period, non-vital government services were shut down, with educational facilities of all levels closed. The country's bustling capital, Havana, was in the dark for hours with most households unable to keep the lights on. Hurricane Oscar (category 1) hit the country in late October, by which power was up in major cities but was unstable and still prone to failure. Come November, Hurricane Rafael (category 3), hit western Cuba, and was followed by earthquakes of magnitude 6.8 and 5.9. Over the course of November and December, the country was met with increasingly sporadic and unpredictable blackouts.


In and Out of the Big City
When it comes to blackouts, there is a large difference between those in the big cities and those in the more rural places of Cuba. With recovery efforts, Havana had their power restored after receiving a lot more resources and attention from the government. While temporary, it was faster than any other part of the country. Unfortunately for those outside the city, blackouts continued for days before any kind of help or support was given to them, sometimes even 8 to 12 hours straight. Throughout Cuba, locals began feeling the stress of the blackouts rather quickly, buying bread and food when the power happened to be on and rushing to cook what was in their fridges before it went bad. Even cooking became a problem, as coal and gas deliveries dried up months ago and some resorted to using improvised wood stoves. Locals protested while others reached out to those who were fortunate to still have power in order to batch-store medicine.

Must be Lucky to be a Tourist
While locals struggled to have their basic needs met, tourists in hotels met a much nicer fate. Many hotels in some of the more touristy regions had generators, and although they were still mostly operational, there were still some issues. With food spoiling, certain items such as eggs, milk and bread weren’t available in resorts, with tourists being limited to a couple of options. This brought on stress for the hospitality staff, who, while also feeling the issues of the blackout after work, had to explain to groups of angry tourists why staple and basic food items were not available.

Tourism Leaving the Country Behind
In the wake of blackouts, especially of this scale nationwide, it was a no-brainer that the tourism industry was going to be affected. Covid marked a decline in tourism for most island-vacation areas, but especially Cuba. For many of those working in the tourism industry this incident became the final nail in the coffin, and they left their jobs after relying on tips for income and seeing an increase in hotel vacancies. The Sunwings Vacation group, selling many of the all inclusive packages and one of Cuba’s main travel partners, removed 26 hotels from their portfolio directly after October's blackouts. While not entirely pulling packages to the country, the group began to invest more money into other vacation packages in countries like the Dominican Republic and Bahamas, that have more stable infrastructure.

Recovery?
In October, governments of the areas with the largest power plants made an effort to try and get them back up and running as soon as possible. By around 1:30 PM, according to a report by the Ministry of Energy and Mining, 70.89% of people had electricity. This energy, however, is in a much more limited supply than before, with the demand for electricity far outweighing the supply. In the coming months, scheduled blackouts in areas by the Cuban government were implemented until more shipments of oil and gas were received. However even then, deficits of amounts over MW caused blackouts for many areas.