Havana, February 18. Human error caused the electrical system to fail, leaving much of Cuba without power, state-owned Unión Eléctrica (UNE) reported on Saturday.
UNE technical director Lázaro Guerra said on television that the disconnection of the electrical system was due to “an operating error, a human error” which affected 220 kilovolt high-voltage lines in a sub- station in the province of Matanzas.( West).
The estimate is that the service will be gradually restored between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. (01:00 GMT), although there are some areas in the provinces of Matanzas (west), Villa Clara, Cienfuegos and Sancti Spíritus (center) that already have service , Guerra said.
Previously, the electricity company had reported on its Telegram channel on the impact from the province of Matanzas (west) to Guantánamo (east), that is to say in 11 of the 15 provinces of the country.
A similar outage in high voltage 220 kilovolt power lines caused power outages across nearly half of the island five days ago.
The reconnection took place almost five hours after the outage that affected the provinces of Sancti Spíritus (center) and Guantánamo.
The Department of Energy and Mines said the cause of the outage was a fire in a rural area.
Last week’s supply cut was one of the biggest since September 27, when a moment of ‘zero generation’ of electricity was recorded after the island passed through the west of Category three Hurricane Ian.
Cuba’s electricity system is in a precarious situation, as evidenced last year, when blackouts were daily and up to 12 hours a day in some areas. The effects have sometimes reached almost 40% of the country.
Among the causes are the age of the eight terrestrial thermoelectric plants with an average of more than 40 years of use; the lack of investment and the lack of fuel.
Outages have decreased significantly since the second half of December and have remained at lower levels in the first weeks of 2023, with effects of less than 10% during peak hours.
The government said last Thursday that it expects an average outage due to blackouts of about three hours a day until next May due to scheduled maintenance of thermoelectric plants.