Cuba suffered its third nationwide power outage since the start of the year on Monday, the state electricity company UNE announced. The utility reported a total disconnection from the national electricity generation system and said it was investigating the causes.
The impoverished island has been struggling to maintain power before the US imposed an oil blockade in January, which has severely reduced fuel supplies for power plants. Since then, Washington has allowed only one Russian oil tanker to dock in Cuba.
“Living like this is agony,” said Meyboll Font, a 51-year-old self-employed social media community manager in Havana. Her neighbourhood has been surviving on just three or four hours of power daily, but the blackout is worse because “you never know when it will return.” A software programmer working for a tourism startup added: “We have no wifi, no electricity, we can’t work.”
The blackout is the eighth since late 2024. Authorities have imposed increasingly long power cuts, exceeding 24 hours in parts of Havana and over 70 hours in some rural areas, in a desperate attempt to conserve fuel. The ageing Soviet-era power generation system is in shambles.
The fuel blockade and sanctions have pushed Cuba closer to collapse, with shortages of food, water, and medicine prompting a UN warning of a humanitarian emergency. The government has invested in solar energy, but it still represents only 10% of the energy mix.
