Cuba's national electric grid remains at approximately 60 percent failure rate, with no new improvement data since the last edition. [1] The island's energy system — already crippled by aging infrastructure and fuel shortages — has not recovered from the nationwide blackouts that began in mid-March.

The grid collapsed on March 16 when a generating unit at the Nuevitas thermoelectric plant in Camagüey province tripped offline. A second collapse followed on March 21, when another unit at the same plant failed. Two total failures in the space of a week — something Cuba's energy union called "exceptional." [2]

The Hormuz closure has compounded Cuba's fuel crisis. The island depends on imported oil, much of it from Venezuela — which itself is struggling with refinery capacity. When Gulf oil prices spike, Cuba's purchasing power shrinks. When Venezuela can't deliver, Cuba's plants can't run.

Forbes reported that the blackouts reveal "broader economic troubles and failures in energy policy" that predate the current war. [3] Cuba's grid has suffered repeated failures in recent years, but the frequency and duration of the current outages — affecting more than 60 percent of the country — represent a qualitative deterioration.

Hospitals are running on generators. Food is spoiling in refrigerators. And the government has offered no timeline for restoration. The energy union has said repairs must be done "gradually to avoid setbacks" because "systems, when very weak, are more susceptible to failure." [4]

Gradual is not a word that resonates with a population that has been in the dark for three weeks.

-- LUCIA VEGA, São Paulo