Cuba begins restoring power after second grid collapse in a week
Cuba is restoring power to its national grid on Sunday, March 22, after the system collapsed for the second time in a week amid a U.S. oil blockade that has dealt a major blow to the island’s ailing energy infrastructure.
The grid collapsed the evening of March 21 at 6:32 p.m. local time after a major power plant in Nuevitas, a municipality in the island’s eastern province of Camagüey, failed and went offline, setting off a domino effect of power loss for the rest of the nation, the national power operator UNE said on social media.
The operator added that the island has set up microsystems of smaller, closed circuits throughout the provinces to route and ensure power for vital services such as hospitals, blood banks, water supply, and food distribution.
Power has been slowly restored to other parts of the island outside the microsystems, including at two gas-fired power plants in Varadero and Boca de Jarucom, and an oil-fired plant in Santa Cruz. The island also fired up a boiler at the country’s largest power plant, according to a recent social media update from Cuba’s energy ministry.
The latest power outage comes as Cuba faces hardship, including multiple power outages, protests, and a lack of oil as a result of a U.S. blockade that has worsened the island’s already outdated generation system. Cuba’s national electric grid collapsed on March 16, the second time in a month that has seen a series of outages, including one sparking a rare violent protest in the communist-run country.
Those issues are exacerbated by the recent blockade launched earlier this year. The United States cut off the flow of Venezuelan oil supply to Cuba following the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a Cuban ally, in January and threatened to impose tariffs on any country supplying it with fuel, rendering planes, cars, and people on the island without oil in many cases.
‘Honor of taking Cuba’
Meanwhile, the Trump administration in January declared a national emergency over Cuba, calling the country “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security.
President Donald Trump has set his sights on Cuba in recent weeks and suggested on March 17 that the United States would be doing “something with Cuba” very soon, even as the nations are said to be in talks aimed at defusing the crisis. Earlier this month, Trump said he believes he’ll have “the honor of taking Cuba” and claimed he could “do anything [he wants]” with the country.
Both the U.S. and Cuba have confirmed to be in talks, with Cuba’s top diplomat in Washington, DC, telling USA TODAY in an exclusive interview on March 13 that Havana was engaged in “serious” and “sensitive” negotiations with the U.S. government. Neither side has provided details of the ongoing negotiations, though Trump has portrayed Cuba as desperate to make a deal.
Mass blackouts have occurred in Cuba before, including in 2024, and are often attributed to the country’s outdated generation system, which depends on aging thermal power plants. The system uses about 100,000 barrels of oil a day for essential services.
Contributing: Reuters
Kate Perez covers national trends and breaking news for USA TODAY. You can reach her at kperez@usatodayco.com or on X @katecperez_.
