Cuba restores power grid but planned outages to resume amid energy crisis | Politics News [Video]

Authorities say Cuba’s national electricity grid has been reconnected but is still struggling to meet demand after a nationwide blackout left millions of people without power for hours.

The National Electric Union (UNE) said on Thursday that it had boosted generation to 1,450 megawatts (MW), still less than half the typical peak demand of 3,200MW.

“The [grid] is operating normally now, but because of a generation deficit we don’t have sufficient capacity to cover demand,” said Lazaro Guerra, who oversees the sector for Cuba’s Ministry of Energy.

This week’s nationwide blackout — the third in less than two months — occurred in the early hours of Wednesday after the Antonio Guiteras power plant in Matanzas, the country’s top electricity producer, shut down.

That triggered a chain reaction, overwhelming an already strained power system and leaving the capital, Havana, in the dark.

Cuba’s oil-fired power plants are decades old and struggling to operate, but this year brought additional struggles, as oil imports …