Power Outage
As reported in the international press, Cuba’s entire electrical grid collapsed on Friday 18 October 2024, twice again on Saturday and a fourth time on Sunday, as attempts were being made to reconnect the grid. The resulting nationwide blackout, now heading into its fourth day, has affected the entire population of the island and all businesses, as well as many other public services such as the supply of water and access to telecommunication services.
According to our on-the-ground managers in Havana, the Cuban authorities have confirmed that the process of reestablishing the electrical system continues to be extremely complex.
The present crisis is a result of an unfortunate mix of factors, including fuel shortages, the recent passage of hurricane Milton, lack of maintenance and upgrade of existing power plants, deteriorating infrastructure, insufficient installed capacity, and rising national demand. The U.S. Cuban embargo complicates matters significantly, preventing the supply and transport of imported oil, equipment and spare parts, and triggering excessive price-hikes at a time that Cuba’s tourism sector continues to struggle to recover the number of tourist arrivals and related tourism income to pre-COVID levels. In any case, it is clear that significant effort and investment will be required over time to make the electrical grid more robust and reliable.
In the face of these difficult conditions, the Miramar Trade Center and the hotels in Havana, Varadero and Trinidad in which the Company has an interest are amongst the least affected and so far have all been able to maintain principal operations, with limitations, thanks to installed back-up generators and – in the case of the Meliá Trinidad Península Hotel – solar panels and battery packs that make this hotel nearly self-sufficient.
The ability of the properties to continue operating in this fashion will depend on the supply of fuel to continue running the on-site backup generators.
Hurricane Oscar
In addition to the failure of the electrical grid, it is likely that Cuba’s East coast will soon be impacted by hurricane Oscar, a category 1 hurricane that is expected to make landfall between Baracoa and Moa and will leave Cuba as a tropical storm in the North of the City of Holguín.
We sincerely hope that Cuba’s electricity company (Unión Eléctrica) will be able to rapidly restore Cuba’s electrical grid and that the impact of hurricane Oscar will be minimal.