Islandwide blackout leaves Havana residents relying on candles as crews try to restart power
Cuba’s energy authorities reported an islandwide blackout on Monday, saying the country’s electrical system suffered a “complete disconnection” as its power grid continues to erode. The Ministry of Energy and Mines said it was investigating the cause of the collapse and noted that there were no failures in the units that were operating when the grid fell. As night approached, families in parts of Havana began using candles, and residents described how quickly outages have become part of daily life.
Lázaro Guerra, the ministry’s electricity director, told state media late Monday that crews were trying to restart several thermoelectric plants, which he described as key to restoring power. Guerra said the restart would have to happen gradually to avoid additional setbacks, warning that “systems, when very weak, are more susceptible to failure.” He framed the effort as a stabilization task after the grid lost the ability to keep itself operating.
By Monday night, state-owned media reported that power had been restored to 5% of Havana residents, representing about 42,000 customers. Officials said they would prioritize the communications sector next, while also warning that the small circuits restored so far could fail again. It was the third major blackout in Cuba over the past four months, according to the report.
For some residents, the latest outage intensified worries about food and basic household needs. Yuneici Cecilia Riviaux described preparing bedding so her daughters could sleep, saying she did not have a rechargeable fan or a generator. Tomás David Velázquez Felipe, 61, said the repeated outages make him think many Cubans who can should leave the island, adding that “What little we have to eat spoils,” and that outages have made survival harder for people who are older and cannot adapt as easily.
Economy and fuel-supply problems have been central to Cuba’s energy crisis, the report said. Cuba’s aging grid has deteriorated in recent years, contributing to daily outages and to islandwide blackouts, while the government has also blamed the situation on a U.S. energy blockade. In January, the report said, U.S. President Donald Trump warned of tariffs on countries that sell or provide oil to Cuba and linked any easing of sanctions to demands including political prisoner releases and moves toward political and economic liberalization.
At the same time, U.S. officials and other sources described sensitive discussions about Cuba’s political leadership. The report said the Trump administration is demanding that Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel leave power, citing a U.S. official and a source familiar with talks between Washington and Havana who spoke on condition of anonymity. It added that both sources confirmed the administration’s stance days after Díaz-Canel publicly acknowledged, for the first time, that his government has held talks with the Trump administration.
Energy specialists have argued that the grid’s condition and maintenance failures compound the fuel constraints. William LeoGrande, a professor at American University, said Cuba’s energy system has not been properly maintained and that its infrastructure is “way past its normal useful life.” He said technicians have continued to keep the system running under extreme strain, but warned that recovery without major changes could mean prolonged misery for the population and, eventually, economic collapse.
LeoGrande said Cuba could try to reduce consumption and expand renewables and that it might “struggle along for a while” without oil shipments, but he said that would still come with severe ongoing costs. He also said ramping up solar power would require other countries—particularly China—to provide equipment at a scale much larger than Cuba managed last year. Díaz-Canel told state media on Friday that the island had not received oil shipments in three months and said Cuba has been operating on solar power, natural gas and thermoelectric plants, adding that the government has postponed surgeries for tens of thousands of people.
The report also described what Cuba says it is doing to respond to the crisis beyond restoring electricity. Óscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga, the deputy prime minister of Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, told reporters Monday that Cuba is open to trading with U.S. companies while noting the embargo’s limits. He said the government is implementing new economic measures, including potential new roles for Cubans living abroad as partners or owners of private companies and involvement in large-scale projects tied to infrastructure, as well as allowing foreign-currency bank accounts in Cuban banks.
In a separate assessment of the causes behind repeated outages, LeoGrande said multiple factors have been converging: the halt of critical oil shipments from Venezuela after the U.S. attacked the country in early January and arrested Nicolás Maduro, Cuba’s inability to meet demand as its grid crumbles, and the lack of hard currency to import spare parts or upgrade equipment. He called it, in his words, “a perfect storm of collapse,” while also noting that thermoelectric plants using heavy oil face corrosion from sulfur content.