Cuba's grid collapsed again on Monday during restoration efforts, underscoring a worsening power crisis driven by fuel shortages, ageing infrastructure, chronic underinvestment and repeated nationwide failures.
Cuba's national electricity grid collapsed late Sunday, causing a widespread blackout across the island, and then failed again on Monday as authorities tried to restore service. State television journalist Lazaro Manuel Alonso said a new disconnection of the National Electric System, or SEN, occurred on Monday afternoon after earlier progress, reporting that "A fluctuation caused the collapse." UNE later said adverse weather conditions disrupted the transmission network during restoration efforts and directly affected generating units that had already returned to service. By early evening, authorities said four generating units at Energas Jaruco were operating and several transmission substations around Havana had been re-energized. The latest outage followed three nationwide grid failures over a nine-day period in July and another collapse late Sunday shortly before 11 p.m. local time. The repeated breakdowns have disrupted homes, businesses and public services across the island of roughly 10 million people. Cuba's electricity system remains under strain from fuel shortages, ageing thermal plants, maintenance problems and chronic underinvestment, leaving the grid vulnerable to fresh failures even during recovery. Cuba blames U.S. sanctions and trade restrictions for limiting access to fuel, financing and spare parts, while Washington says the outages reflect failures of the country's state-run economic model.