A similar event also brought traffic from Sancti Spiritus (central south) to Guantanamo (southeast) to a halt a week ago, but due to a fire in the countryside, authorities said.

On September 27, another massive power outage was recorded after Category 3 Hurricane Ian passed through the west of the island. At the same time, the Cuban government confirmed that the point of “zero generation” of electricity was reached, and most of the country spent almost a week without electricity.

The Cuban electricity system is facing a dangerous situation, which was reflected last year in daily power outages of up to 12 hours in some regions. The effects sometimes reached almost 40% of the country’s territory.

Among the reasons are the age of 8 ground thermal power plants with an average life of more than 40 years; investment deficit and lack of fuel.

Outages have declined significantly since the second half of December and have remained at lower levels in the first weeks of 2023, with an impact of less than 10% during peak demand hours.

The government said last Thursday that it expects an average of three hours a day of power outages until May next year due to planned maintenance of thermal power plants.

(EFE)