A massive grid failure has left two-thirds of Cuba without electricity.
The collapse of the island’s National Electric System, known as the SEN, has left nearly 7 million of the island’s 10 million inhabitants without power, including in the country’s capital, Havana.
“The causes are being investigated, and protocols for restoration are beginning to be activated,” Cuba’s Ministry of Energy and Mines posted Monday on X.
The Cuban government hasn’t specified the apparent reasons for the blackout, which has reportedly impacted 10 of the country’s 15 provinces, according to the Spanish newspaper El Pais.
Cuban state television blamed an “unfortunate shutdown” of the Antonio Guiteras power plant, the island’s largest generator, for the outage.
Analysts say the already fragile state of Cuba’s electrical grid was shaken by the Trump administration’s decision to cut off its supply of Venezuelan crude and threaten tariffs on any country providing Havana with oil.
“Blackouts are now part of the daily life of Cubans, who in recent months have grown accustomed to outages that in some regions can exceed 20 hours a day,” according to El País. “Cuba is suffering a full-blown energy crisis that has deteriorated significantly over the past year and a half.”
