Our purpose is to advance the energy transition and our independence from import of fuels.
The Government Program for the recovery of the National Electric System is a first priority goal: to end the bothersome and costly blackouts.
Wennys Díaz Ballaga | internet@granma.cu, Susana Antón Rodriguez | susana@granma.cu and Carmen Maturell Senon | internet@granma.cu
December 18, 2025
Despite this focused goal, he explained, there are much broader purposes that include energy transition and the achievement of independence from fuel imports. We had to advance our own solutions, he said and underlined that Cuba has to implement an energy transition program that applies to the entire national territory.
Tangible results: Energy generations distributed and solar Parks sites.
The Minister pointed to concrete advances since the beginning of the Program as follows:
· Distributed Energy Generation: Currently the technical availability grew from 350 MW to more than 1100 MW. This growth was vital during the recent hurricane, when a few provinces had more energy during the hurricane than when the National Energy System was connected, and this was thanks to the work done with solar parks and generator sets.
· Generator Sets: Actually there are more than 11 900 groups supporting vital centers, with an availability of more than 80 percent. «There was no hospital stopping functioning», he said during the cyclone.
· Photovoltaic solar parks: We advance towards our goal for a thousand MW installed by the end of this year, with 51 parks. «There are already almost 800 MW» and this week we will complete eight more. This program is a collective work in which our entire industry, Armed Forces, the Ministry of Building and all the territories are included».
Impact on the System and Saving fuel
The incorporation of renewable energy is already showing a direct impact, he underlined that solar generation has had daily peaks of more than 700 MW, overcoming even the 30 percent of the national generation of electric energy at some points of the day.
This contribution prevents blackouts that often take place at times of peak demand (from 1800 to 2000 MW), and extend «during the 24 hours of the day». «If we did not have these solar Parks…the situation would be challenging during the entire 24 hours», explained the Minister.
Energy transition «brings with it a considerable decrease in the consumption of fuels».
The plan, he argued, not only focuses on electricity but in the entire system of fuel. A priority has been to «stop degrowth» on the national production of oil and gas, whose infrastructure was in a similar state of deterioration to the thermoelectric plants.
We managed to assign resources that would allow us to close this year with an increase of more than 85 000 tons of oil and gas.
The production of gas «has broken all the records», reaching more than 2.5 million cubic meters daily, and they are used in generation of electricity, he informed.
Investments and management of imported fuels
The chief of MINEM highlighted that the country has destined more than 1 100 million US dollars of its own resources to this comprehensive Program, financing distributed energy generation, solar Parks and critical Works like the recovery of the base for supertankers in Matanzas, tanks built with roofs in place and in the process of filling.
With respect to the import of fuels, there is more flexible management and policy in place: «This is not a boat we have to buy complete…we can buy small amounts in function of our financial capacities». This has allowed us to keep a level of physical inventory in the country and assign fuel to export firms so they do not have to stop production.
The Minister of Energy and Mining, Vicente de la O Levy, informed that the Government Program predicted the recovery of 1 400 MW in thermal generation, and in this there capitals of maintenance and investment included. Among these projects he highlighted the Felton 2 unit, about which he affirmed: «Never stop working in Felton 2» and an important advance is expected in 2026. He clarified that it will not end that year, but that significant progress will be achieved.
Within this Program of Recovery, the Minister detail the state of a few units as follows:
Finished: the capital reparation of block 3 of CTE Carlos Manuel de Céspedes (in April); the machine 5 of CTE Antonio Maceo, Renté in Santiago de Cuba (in October), and of Unit 2 of CTE Ernesto Guevara en Santa Cruz, (to start this month).
About Céspedes 4, De la O Levy explained that this unit has finished its maintenance and was started with optimal parameters, it was stopped to complete measurements and during the second start suffered a serious failure. «There was a failure of importance», he explained. Still, he explained, «the resources are there, spare parts are available so they are working on it», and the technical cause of the failure was identified, even if repairing it will take us some time it will be less than previous repairs.
Energy Sovereignty Strategy has been validated by the Context.
De la O Levy underlined the Program of Recovery as a long term task in search of sustainability with our own resources. «When we talk about sovereignty we are saying that we need to maintain the National Energy System (SEN) with crude from Cuba, and with gas produced in Cuba, with power from the Sun, wind and other resources that Cuba has», he said.
He also explained that the actual international situation has «arrived to make our life more challenging», a situation that validates even more our strategy of depending only on our own resources.
Design: Priority so our Economy is not stopped
Recognizing that the situation is far from resolved, he affirmed: «we do not think that anything is resolved to a high percentage», because we still have long hours of blackouts. He informed that the design, approved by the National Defense Council (CDN) is to not stop exporters, not stop food production and to protect national defense with total priority». He admitted this implies sacrifices because «energy may not be enough for all», but it is crucial not to stop the economy.
In another moment he announced the implementation of the photovoltaic systems with batteries to supply stable electricity as priority to essential sectors with a particular focus on the eastern part of our country.
Goal: Electrification of 100% of isolated housing units
As part of this program the Minister shared that actually there are 5 000 photovoltaic systems in Cuba destined to ensure the access of electricity to all the housing units currently unconnected. There are 2 200 houses without electricity of any kind, and we plan on covering 100% of them with this technology. The rest of the systems will be used to ensure that housing units that today count with only four hours of electricity thanks to combustion motors, without removing them, will count with both energy technologies so they have more access.
Translation by NSCUBA (Nova Scotia)
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