Cuba's national power grid suffers total disconnection

Cuba's state electricity utility announced Friday that the national power grid had suffered a total disconnection, leaving the Caribbean island without electricity as authorities scrambled to restore service amid an ongoing energy crisis.

The Electricity Union (UNE) confirmed the outage on social media platform X. "A total disconnection of the National Electric System has occurred. The protocols for recovery are already being activated," the utility said, adding that crews were investigating the cause and would provide updates as restoration efforts progressed.

Pattern of failures

Friday's blackout marked the latest in a series of nationwide power failures to hit Cuba this year, as the island's aging infrastructure struggles with chronic fuel shortages and limited generation capacity that has left the grid vulnerable to total collapse. The utility reported several nationwide blackouts in July and another major outage on Aug. 2, according to authorities and international media reports, while residents in Havana and other areas have endured outages lasting more than 30 hours in recent weeks amid rising temperatures and increased demand.

Infrastructure decay

The power system has been crippled by deteriorating thermal power plants, acute fuel shortages and mounting difficulties in maintaining generation capacity, according to the Energy and Mines Ministry. Renewable energy sources have provided some additional generation capacity, but thermal power plants remain the major component of Cuba's electricity system and have been unable to compensate for the fuel deficit.

Blame and impact

The electricity shortages have disrupted essential services including water supplies and telecommunications across the island, compounding the hardship for residents already struggling with the economic crisis. Cuban authorities have blamed US sanctions and measures affecting fuel supplies for worsening the energy crisis and crippling the power grid, while Washington has attributed the island's economic and infrastructure problems to mismanagement and the Cuban government's domestic policies.