Cuba is a Caribbean island, home to around 10 million people, and a socialist country with a single-party system. After the Triumph of the Revolution in 1959, Cuba became a strong ally of the socialist bloc and a member of the COMECON. As part of that economic, political, and commercial alliance, the energy sector in Cuba also received investments in energy, infrastructure, and oil from the former Soviet Union. Therefore, the collapse of the socialist bloc in the 1990s represented a drastic shock for the Cuban economy that also caused a long-lasting energy crisis.
Intensifying Energy Crisis: 1990s – 2024
In the past thirty years, Cuba has transitioned through several critical policy changes to cushion the impact of the energy crisis. In the 1990s, blackouts became the norm to save energy in a scenario of acute oil scarcity. History is now repeating itself. In the past year, 2024, the availability of electricity supply reached its lowest level in five years 1 , worsening the energy crisis to the point that the national electric system collapsed in October 2024, leaving the country without electricity for over 72 hours. 2
According to data from 2021, Cuba depends on fossil fuels for 95% of its electricity generation, and only 3% is generated with renewable sources of energy 3 . Despite efforts and apparent policy-led initiatives, the introduction of renewable energy sources is still slow and inconsistent. Cuba’s electric infrastructure is mostly obsolete and faces difficulties to guarantee proper funding and time availability for maintenance. The country has twenty generating blocks distributed in power plants across the country, but not all of them are operational all the time. Sixteen blocks are from the former Soviet Union and former Czechoslovakia.
These technologically obsolete plants and the high sulfur content in the Cuban petroleum have shortened maintenance periods to keep the plants working in optimal conditions. 4
The depauperate conditions of Cuba’s energy infrastructure have almost paralyzed the country’s economy. The government and state-controlled sectors were forced to organize work schedules around the extensive and repeated programmed and non-programmed blackouts. The private sector faces the
complexities of providing goods and services in a context of energy uncertainty that increases costs and constrains its activities.
Renewable Transition and Uncertain Outlook
The government has recently pushed for policy and legislative efforts to speed up the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. In the upcoming years, Cuba expects to build 92 solar farms that will generate around 2000MW. Fifty-five of these parks should be available by 2025 5 . Newly approved legislation will require the entrepreneurial sector to design programs to generate at least 50% of their electricity consumption with renewable energy in the next five years. Cuba also expects to cover 24% of its energy generation with renewable sources by 2030. 6
Nevertheless, this is a long-term goal with limited short-term impact, as is the current energy crisis.
Cuba’s electric grid is also highly vulnerable to hurricane impacts. The hurricane season hits the old infrastructure at least once a year, forcing the government to divert resources to reparations and restore the electric system in affected areas. The costs of being a tropical island in the Caribbean, the deficient electric infrastructure, and the systemic crisis that has lasted around three decades are taking a toll on Cubans and the Cuban government. The predicament is allocating resources to long-term investments that improve resilience and reduce vulnerability while funding recovery efforts from environmental disasters.
In the 21st century, economic growth or development cannot occur without access to energy sources, and Cuba is severely lagging. In the early 2000s, the Cuban government, led by Fidel Castro, implemented a program titled Energy Revolution. The program peaked in 2006, but its name was more ambitious than the actual design and implementation. The program’s goal was to save energy and substitute some polluting energy sources with safer and better options, like electricity. The government set up generators to guarantee electricity to vulnerable provinces and regions. It addressed the use of kerosene in households’ kitchens by providing electric pots, stoves, and water heaters. For example, in Granma, an
eastern province in Cuba, 93.5 % of households cooked with kerosene, and after the energy revolution, this number shifted to 97% of households cooking with electricity. The energy revolution also substituted several appliances that were high in consumption with more modern appliances that saved energy.
The problem is that the energy revolution did not correct Cuba’s dependence on fossil fuels to produce electricity. In the long run, the generators installed in the early 2000s depreciated their value, efficiency, and capacity to provide energy. To that, we must add the deterioration of the electric infrastructure, along with the economic crisis in Venezuela, one of Cuba’s leading provider of oil, and Russia’s war in Ukraine. All that, plus the worsening of the economic crisis after the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of hurricane seasons, has increased the vulnerability of Cuba’s energy system and pushed it to an almost collapse.
Cuba does not have a clear path to short-term solutions to this crisis. In a time of food scarcity and energy crisis, the country has faced one of its worst crises in over 100 years. It is difficult to predict a positive outcome, considering that President Trump’s return to the White House, and the leadership of Marco Rubio in the State Department, might result in more financial sanctions to Cuba and the expected worsening of economic conditions for the island.
References
- “Cuba cuenta con elevado potencial de fuentes renovables de energía, según experto (+ Video) – Cubadebate,” Cubadebate – Cubadebate, Por la Verdad y las Ideas, December 29, 2024,
http://www.cubadebate.cu/especiales/2024/12/29/cuba-cuenta-con-elevado-potencial-de-fuentes-renovables-de-energia-segun-experto-en-el-tema-video/. - “AP EXPLICA: Qué Saber Sobre La Falla Eléctrica Que Sumió a Cuba En La Oscuridad | AP News,” accessed February 10, 2025, https://apnews.com/article/cuba-apagon-electricidad-9bcfd64c4c49e3cfcf76cdd29a9a3303; Carla Gloria Colomé, “Cuba sufre un apagón nacional y se declara en ‘emergencia energética’ ante el colapso del sistema eléctrico,” El País América, October 18, 2024, https://elpais.com/us/2024-10-18/cuba-sufre-un-apagon-nacional-y-se-declara-en-emergencia-energetica-ante-el-colapso-del-sistema-electrico.html.
- “Cuba en Datos: Apuntes necesarios sobre las termoeléctricas que debes conocer – Cubadebate,” Cubadebate -Cubadebate, Por la Verdad y las Ideas, September 14, 2022,
http://www.cubadebate.cu/especiales/2022/09/14/cuba-en-datos-apuntes-necesarios-sobre-las-termoelectricas-que-debes-conocer/. - Ibid.
- “Ministro de Energía y Minas ofrece detalles del programa de recuperación del SEN (+ Video) – Cubadebate,” Cubadebate – Cubadebate, Por la Verdad y las Ideas, December 19, 2024,
http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2024/12/19/ministro-de-energia-y-minas-ofrece-detalles-del-programa-de-recuperacion-del-sen/. - “Cuba cuenta con elevado potencial de fuentes renovables de energía, según experto (+ Video) – Cubadebate.”