Full blackout hits Cuba as island’s energy crisis worsens

A total blackout hit Cuba on Wednesday, the latest in a series of outages blamed on ageing infrastructure and fuel shortages at power plants.

It was the second island-wide outage this year, with three other blackouts reported late last year. The Ministry of Energy said on social platform X that the latest outage could be tied to a malfunction at one of Cuba’s biggest thermoelectric plants. Argelio , the ministry’s vice minister, said on state TV that the grid shut down after an apparently erroneous message warning of overheating disconnected the thermoelectric plant. He added that officials immediately began to build a type of microsystem to deliver electricity to infrastructure that provides basic services. The ministry said crews were working to restore power to the island of roughly 10 million people, with electricity returning to hospitals, food production plants and other high-priority businesses.