The Cuban government announced that the shutdown of the main heating plant in Cuba caused an accident in the entire electrical transmission system of the island, reported France Press.
“The power transmission system is without power throughout the country after the shutdown of the Antonio Guiteras plant,” Lázaro Guerra, director general of power supply issues at Cuba’s Ministry of Energy and Mines, said on television.
Yesterday evening, the Cuban government announced a work stoppage in the public sector in an attempt to deal with the energy crisis that has affected the entire island.
In recent weeks, several provinces have been without electricity for up to twenty hours in one day.
Guerra pointed out that when the thermal plant shut down, “the system collapsed” and that the government mobilized to restore it as quickly as possible.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said that “there will be no rest until the power grid is restored” and that the government has made solving this “very sensitive energy problem” its absolute priority.
Yesterday, the Cuban leader announced that Cuba was in an “emergency energy situation” due to difficulties in buying the fuel needed to power power plants due to the tightening of the embargo that Washington has imposed on the island since 1962.
To deal with this situation, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero announced the suspension of all non-essential activities of the state at a time when the electricity deficit reached almost 50% yesterday.
On the island, electricity is produced by eight outdated thermal power plants, which are sometimes out of service or under repair, as well as seven floating power plants that the government leases to Russian companies, and power generators. Most of these infrastructures need fuel to operate.
The island is currently experiencing its worst crisis in three decades, with food and medicine shortages and chronic power outages, BTA writes.