Cuba began restoring power on Sunday, a day after a nationwide grid collapse plunged millions of people into darkness for the third time in March, according to the state-run Electric Union and the Ministry of Energy and Mines. In Havana, electricity returned early Sunday to some 72,000 customers, including five hospitals, though the figure covered only a fraction of the capital’s roughly 2 million residents.
The restart efforts leaned on smaller, local systems in different parts of the country. In Havana and in provinces including Matanzas and Holguín, local power microsystems were set up to supply what the government described as the most vital centers, and residents in some areas told The Associated Press that power returned during the early morning hours.
Cuba is facing what the government has described as an energy crisis intensified by repeated blackouts. The last nationwide blackout occurred on Monday, and the state-backed restoration process took several days to bring power back. Saturday’s outage was the second in the previous week and the third nationwide outage in March.
The Electric Union, which reports to the Ministry of Energy and Mines, said the national system’s total disconnection was triggered by an unexpected shutdown of a generation unit at the Nuevitas thermoelectric plant in Camagüey province, without providing details on the specific cause of the failure. Cuba’s grid—aging and struggling in recent years—has been hit repeatedly, and the government said the outages have been compounded by shrinking fuel availability for power generation.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel said Cuba has not received oil from foreign suppliers for three months, while the island produces barely 40% of the fuel it needs to power its economy, the report said. In addition, Cuba’s energy officials and Díaz-Canel have pointed to an intensified U.S. pressure campaign, which includes a Trump administration demand that Cuba release political prisoners and move toward political and economic liberalization in exchange for a lifting of sanctions.
The Associated Press report said President Donald Trump warned in January of tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to Cuba. The U.S. actions also intersect, Cuban officials said, with the interruption of petroleum shipments from Venezuela after Nicolás Maduro was removed, a shift the report described as halting critical deliveries from a longstanding ally.
Cuban residents have described how the outages affect day-to-day life beyond the immediate loss of electricity. The report said daily blackouts have reduced work hours, left people without electricity for cooking, and damaged household appliances, among other consequences. Suleydi Crespo, a 33-year-old woman with two small children, told AP on Saturday that her refrigerator broke during the blackout and that voltage had dropped in the nights as well, adding that without power the next day they would not be able to get water.
Other residents described a growing sense of exhaustion from the constant interruptions. Dagnay Alarcón, a 35-year-old vendor, said people have to “get used to continuing our usual routine” and “try to survive,” whether there is electricity or not. María Regla Cardoso, a housewife in Havana, said she is not focused on politics and that Cubans have to keep living, saying she leaves the situation “in God’s hands” and will face whatever form it takes.
Cuban officials also linked the crisis to fuel availability for multiple parts of the economy, not just power plants. The Vice Minister of Energy and Mines, Argelio Abad Vigo, said the country has gone three months without receiving supplies of diesel, fuel oil, gasoline, aviation fuel, or liquefied petroleum gas—materials he said are vital for the economy and for generating electricity. The report said fuel sales for vehicles are rationed and that airlines have suspended flights or reduced frequencies, while many workplaces have reduced hours.