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Power

10 Million Cubans Suffer Nationwide Power Outage (cnn.com) 77

Posted by EditorDavid from the darkest-night dept.
"Cuba's power grid collapsed Friday night," reports CNN, "triggering a nationwide power outage and plunging its more than 10 million people into darkness." Video filmed by CNN in the capital Havana showed streets and buildings shrouded in total darkness, as people used electric torches to navigate the streets. By Saturday morning, the Cuban government officials said that "microsystems" — pockets of electricity — had been restored in some cities. However, it remains unclear when the island's power system would be fully online again and most people remained in the dark...

It marks the latest in a series of failures on the Caribbean island struggling with creaking infrastructure, natural disasters and economic turmoil... For nearly a week in October, most of Cuba suffered near-total blackouts, the worst energy outages in decades. While Cubans are used to frequent power outages, to have another nationwide backcourt — the fourth in six months — was unsettling for many people who need electricity to cook and refrigerate food that otherwise spoils quickly in the tropical heat.
"Many residents posted on online sites looking for propane, charcoal, and fuel for generators..."

10 Million Cubans Suffer Nationwide Power Outage More | Reply

10 Million Cubans Suffer Nationwide Power Outage

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  • looking on the bright side (Score:4, Insightful)

    by v1 ( 525388 ) on Saturday March 15, 2025 @12:41PM (#65235881) Homepage Journal

    I'd imagine by now the electrical engineers in Cuba are amassing some very valuable experience in black-starting power grids.

    It wouldn't surprise me if we see an exodus of those engineers to other places in the world that value that experience. In regions where the power is usually stable, it's next to impossible to find people with actual experience in black starting. It's great that you know the manual back and forth, but actual experience in executing those processes during an actual grid failure is rare as gold in most places.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bobby ( 109046 )

      You're reminding me of the story of Apollo 13 where they had to very carefully restart systems.

    • It wouldn't surprise me if we see an exodus of those engineers to other places in the world that value that experience

      Problem is, emigration out of cuba is highly regulated by the goverment. And, the country being an island, is quite difficult to get out illegally. Not as difficult as north korea, but quite difficult.

      You would be better off trying to poach engineers from 2019 Venezuela.

      • Problem is, emigration out of cuba is highly regulated by the goverment. And, the country being an island, is quite difficult to get out illegally. Not as difficult as north korea, but quite difficult.

        Total rubbish. There are no restrictions whatsoever on people leaving Cuba, apart from the usual requirement for a plane ticket, passport and visa depending on the intended destination. The latter is the hard one for most Cubans, but that's nothing to do with the Cuban government.

      • It is not difficult at all to get out of Cuba.
        It is difficult to get into another country.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      The ultimate black start: Hamster wheel charges jumpbox, starts pony motor, starts diesel generator, starts paired generators, starts gas turbine, etc.

      • If I recall correctly from an IEEE Spectrum article describing the 1977 New York City blackout, crews ended up black-starting one Con Edison plant by running cables to a New York Telephone office that had sufficient generating capacity independent of the grid.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by v1 ( 525388 )

          Nack then they may not have had requirements for grids to have a few black-start-capable plants on their grid. And phone companies are well-known for having backup power, even way back then.

          I'm thankful that there's a BSC plant 10 miles from me. It'll be one of the first ones in the state to come back up if there's a grid collapse in these parts.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sjames ( 1099 )

          Not too surprising. Black start capability really hasn't been given nearly as much thought as it deserves.

  • Maybe having one huge grid is a bad thing? Obviously there are benefits of sharing power generation, but if enough generators go offline, and/or the overall demand exceeds generation capacity, maybe they'd do better to break the grid into smaller chunks? (I'm asking, I don't know the various tradeoffs / economies of scale, etc.)

    Or, maybe they just need a more modernized control system that can take individual substations offline so as to not overtax the main grid? Of course, deciding who gets taken offline

    • Maybe having one huge grid is a bad thing? Obviously there are benefits of sharing power generation, but if enough generators go offline, and/or the overall demand exceeds generation capacity, maybe they'd do better to break the grid into smaller chunks? (I'm asking, I don't know the various tradeoffs / economies of scale, etc.)

      Or, maybe they just need a more modernized control system that can take individual substations offline so as to not overtax the main grid? Of course, deciding who gets taken offline prioritization is a different problem.

      Cuba already has that, is called "distributed generation", it helps in case of huracanes and such. PRoblem is this is based on diesel generators, and they do not have the money to buy the diesel in the international markets, so...

    • The equipment needed to create effective microgrids is relatively new and not widely available in Cuba. They have drastically under-invested in the grid and while modernizing and making it more robust makes sense, they need the money and expertise to make it work... and they also need to put a lot of money into primary generation and distribution.

      The situation is similar to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria... just without the same economic backstop of a larger country. They will likely need 10 years to f

      • I feel bad about the human suffering. I really do.

        But they’ve drastically underinvested in literally everything. Whenever they do get their hands on some money, they waste it. But, hey, at least they’ve got this really suave lookin’ nationally-recognized guy in military fatigues chomping on a cigar, so I guess that counts for something? Oh, wait, he’s long dead. At least they’ve still got their wonderful “socialist” government.

        And, before the usual crowd co

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Those idiots chose to align themselves with the giant gorilla 2000 kilometers away instead of that other giant gorilla camped right on their doorstep, and they never bothered to admit their mistake and adjust.

          Sort of like Ukraine.

        • Re:Divide and conquer? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by djinn6 ( 1868030 ) on Saturday March 15, 2025 @04:26PM (#65236283)

          Those idiots chose to align themselves with the giant gorilla 2000 kilometers away instead of that other giant gorilla camped right on their doorstep, and they never bothered to admit their mistake and adjust. Nothing but a string of nationally dumb choices, one after the other. They made their own bed.

          You realize what you said applies to Ukraine and Taiwan too?

          If you support national sovereignty and self determination, then Cuba had every right to align themselves with the Soviets and we should not be doing anything to interfere.

          • We support USA being #1 and anything else is just words. We 100% support national sovereignty and self determination, so long as it doesn't run counter to our interests.

          • Your point about Ukraine and Taiwan has some validity. Fundamentally, yes, smaller countries can choose whom to align with and there are consequences.

            But the equivalency ends there. Ukraine and Taiwan have the choice to a) align with Uncle Sam or b) align with the other guy who will simply absorb them. I dont think the US would have absorbed Cuba. With the exception of our current president, the US has n’t been particularly expansionist when it comes to territory.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Anonymous Coward
              You're not only full of shit, you're straight up ignoring history. The US has always wanted to control Cuba. Maybe it wouldn't be legally be made a territory, but it would most definitely be a de facto territory of the US if we managed to overthrow the government. They wouldn't have aligned themselves with the Soviets if we hadn't gone crazy anti-communist and tried to violently overthrow the government many times, but we did so they had no other choice.

            • the US has nâ(TM)t been particularly expansionist when it comes to territory.
              Lolz. Short memory?
              Hawaii? Puerto Rico? Samoa? Should I go on ... ah, Puerto Rico is not officially annexed yet, sorry, my fault, I galloped ahead!

              Well, Alaska got bought, so it does not count ...

              And Cuba? You tried it three times, and failed.

              STUPID IDIOT.

              Japan still not having full sovereignty after the war ...

              Kind of raises the question what it was about the invasion of Grenada and a few years later Panama. Bu

          • I think you are dramatically misstating Cuban history. Cuba isn't in the state that they are because of anything done by the US. Cuba nationalized high-value assets owned by US entities and then wanted to host Soviet nuclear weapons. In other words, Cuba deliberately set out to be a threat to the US. Neither Ukraine nor Taiwan have nationalized Russian or Chinese assets. And neither hosts nuclear weapons. In fact, Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons. So I think your history is a bit simplistic and
        • That has the entire United States out to get them because of our national electoral politics and Florida. I don't think it's fair to say they didn't invest. They don't have anything to invest. Every time the country starts to get a leg up they get hammered with sanctions and grinded into pulp so that the American Republican party can win Florida in the presidential election.

          There are some cases when imperialism really is the problem and Cuba is one of them. It's a country that should have a vibrant tour

          • Every time Cuba gets their hands on money, they rig violent totalitarian revolutions in Central and South American nations - putting millions deeper into poverty, propping up totalitarianism, and creating environmental disasters.

            Biden tried to loosen up, but then they went right back into old habits and he had to reverse himself.

            And you think Cuba can be a Scandinavian paradise “if only”? Really?

            Note that no significant sized Caribbean, Central American, or South American country comes close to

            • Every time Cuba gets their hands on money, they rig violent totalitarian revolutions in Central and South American nations - putting millions deeper into poverty, propping up totalitarianism, and creating environmental disasters.
              I suggest to read some books about South American history under the Monroe Doctrine.

              The rest of your post is simply nonsense.

              - Swedenâ(TM)s healthcare outcomes basically match after accounting for confounding factors like differences in obesity, violence, and for things like co

              • Cuba isn’t practicing Monroe doctrine “non intervention”, is it? Your attitude is all must ignore the millions forced into totalitarianism and poverty throughout the Americas due to Cuba’s actions?

                Everything is fine as long as the local gangs burn down only your neighbor’s homes, eh?

                And too lazy to dig into the particulars Swedish situation, eh? And unaware they only got this far after firmly rejecting an unequivocally disastrous experiment with socialism, eh?

                Such sanctimonious

                • As for Greta, it’s not surprising that you value the words of a Marxist. After all, Cuba, your utopia, has a horrible Marxist death and impoverishment toll that is dwarfed by Marx’ total toll. But we mustn’t worry about it per Monroe, eh? How enlightening. Walter Duranty is a hero of yours too, eh? Utopia awaits, eh?

          • Your history is weak, and I think your understanding of US motivations is skewed. The current state of affairs was largely created by stupidity in the early 1960s - some standard-grade stupidity by the US (bay of pigs) and some utterly colossal jaw-dropping stupidity on the Cuban side (missile crisis). That one involved nukes. We took that VERY seriously. At that point, the US started suffocating their economy, and it’s been like that ever since.

            They’re a socialist/dictatorship government

            • What Americans refuse to grasp is: Cuba is a democracy.
              And on top of that, Americans refuse to grasp: America is not a democracy. It is a money Aristocraty, or the same Russian Oligarchs: in better clothes.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by armada ( 553343 )
          There has not been a naval blockade of Cuba in over 50 years. The rest of the world can trade with Cuba, the US does not but that is hardly a boot on their neck.Their demise is the totalitarian murderous regime's fault. I'm amazed the grid lasted this long.

          • The rest of the world can trade with Cuba, the US does not but that is hardly a boot on their neck.

            The US has an embargo on Cuba that applies to anything with more than 10% US content. There is also an embargo on anything with content produced in Cuba being imported into the United States. There are exceptions to the embargo, but those restrictions from the worlds largest economy are a pretty heavy boot on their neck. That is the reason Cubans are still using cars from the 1950's and it likely applies to their grid problems as well.

          • Yes, some of the rest of the world - is free to - or is trading with Cuba.
            However USA is sanctioning everyone who does.

            So?

            Versus the EU it does not work anymore. As every time you put a tariff on our trades - because we trade with Cuba - we retaliated with a tariff on your products. So since roughly 1990, Cuba can trade "a little bit". But the neighbours around it in the Caribbean: do not dare. They trade in the sense of smuggling. And that is it.

            The US of awesomeness isolated Cuba. It is not important enou

        • Those "idiots" did not chose anything.
          They were under a military dictatorship: dumbass.

          And why would anyone chose a MAFIA state anyway? At his door step?
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          The Unites States of awesomeness set up a MAFIA boss as dictator in Cuba. And when finally "the revolution" happens, you wonder why "the free people" do not "join the US"?

          ARE ALL AMERICANS SO FUCKING STUPID?

    • Cuba sort of tried this, but they couldn't afford to do it right. 22% of their power comes from small distributed plants that they thought would give them resilience. But this would only really work if they created many small subgrids interconnected by HVDC interconnects and of course did not put more load on the sub-grids than could be supported locally. But doing this right would cost them upwards of $100 billion in grid infrastructure that they cannot afford. So all the generating capacity that they

    • France has only one huge grid/control zone.
      Germany has four.

      Grids do not work like you think they work.

      It is called a grid: because you can isolate areas just like on a chess board.

      So, unless your topology is odd (could be in case of Cuba - honestly no idea) you cut off the problematic areas.

      Of course, deciding who gets taken offline prioritization is a different problem.
      That is not really a problem, it is kind of hard coded into the infrastructure.
      Normally it works completely automatic anyway.

    • The key think about an electric grid is, well, that it's like a grid hence the name. Large grids have a single entity responsible for managing it overall but then there are also local operators of each section. One thing that every operator has to be able to do is to shed load to prevent this type of blackout. And, in the worst case, entire sections can and should be disconnected to prevent larger-scale blackouts. I know nothing about how Cuba has built and managed their infrastructure. But even in hor

  • backcourt?
    Is proofreading dead?

  • Makes me wonder (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Saturday March 15, 2025 @01:08PM (#65235933)

    Cuba and China share a history of Communism. China is establishing ties - which I rather want to call 'tentacles' - in other under-developed countries. So I'm a bit surprised that China hasn't helped Cuba out with their power grid problems. At the very least they could send solar panels and batteries to help with grid backup; they could also likely provide transformers, switchgear, generators, other hardware, and manpower.

    Doing this on America's doorstep might be somewhat problematic; but given the turmoil-laden shit-show that the US has become, if I was Xi I'd be tempted to go there if only for the truly popcorn-worthy spectacle which would likely unfold. Also, such a move might improve China's reputation on the world stage.

    I have no love for the Chinese Communists; but - especially as a Canadian - I also have no love for the American Fascists. But if one of those is going to have more political, economic and diplomatic dominance, I'd rather it be the assholes across the Pacific Ocean and not the ones we share an increasingly uneasy border with.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Alistair Riddell ( 3979385 )

      Cuba and China share a history of Communism. China is establishing ties - which I rather want to call 'tentacles' - in other under-developed countries. So I'm a bit surprised that China hasn't helped Cuba out with their power grid problems. At the very least they could send solar panels and batteries to help with grid backup; they could also likely provide transformers, switchgear, generators, other hardware, and manpower.

      The Cuban state power company is building solar farms just as fast as they can, with Chinese support. That helps with daytime peak demand, but is little use for evenings.

      • Thanks for the info. Are they putting storage batteries and converters in place as well?

        I just checked and it seems the latest problem was a cascade failure which started when "an aging component of a transmission line at a substation in Havana shorted". Situations like this make me wonder if having lots of local, grid-independent solar-and-battery facilities could save a lot of Cuban citizens a lot of grief.

    • Re:Makes me wonder (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Saturday March 15, 2025 @01:54PM (#65236027) Homepage Journal

      You identified the issue - the US would have a pissy fit if China got too involved in Cuba.

      • This right here. There is internationally taught history involving countries hostile to America doing things in Cuba. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] China is expanding tentacles into much of the world but they are very cautious where they do so.

        • Thanks. I was aware of the Crisis, having started school a couple of years afterward. I hadn't thought of it in this context though, probably because holding that grudge for six decades seems kinda whacked. But you're right, I should have known better.

          Maybe Canada should offer to help Cuba out with their power infrastructure. That couldn't possibly piss Washington off - right? ;-}

      • Honestly I don't think it matters what the US wants anymore we're too dysfunctional to do basically anything. We are literally talking about invading Canada and Greenland for Christ sakes. China can do pretty much anything they want and there's nothing we can do to stop them we're to dysfunctional.

        • Well, China is surrounded, encircled and hold hostage by american ai bases.

          What is the closest "hostile" air base to USA?

    • I think Cuba might have actually made a real go at it briefly but it never lasted. In China was always just a brutal dictatorship that used communist rhetoric.

      It's one of the things I wonder what it must be like to be in China and studying communism and economics in their university system. Because you know the whole country is a capitalist dystopia hellscape and a kleptocratic shit hole but you can't say that or you get disappeared. So you're studying all this communist theory about revolution against

    • "...if I was Xi I'd be tempted to go there if only for the truly popcorn-worthy spectacle which would likely unfold."

      I suspect Xi is thinking, "Don't interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Cuba and China share a history of Communism. China is establishing ties - which I rather want to call 'tentacles' - in other under-developed countries. So I'm a bit surprised that China hasn't helped Cuba out with their power grid problems. At the very least they could send solar panels and batteries to help with grid backup; they could also likely provide transformers, switchgear, generators, other hardware, and manpower.

      Doing this on America's doorstep might be somewhat problematic; but given the turmoil-laden shit-show that the US has become, if I was Xi I'd be tempted to go there if only for the truly popcorn-worthy spectacle which would likely unfold. Also, such a move might improve China's reputation on the world stage.

      I have no love for the Chinese Communists; but - especially as a Canadian - I also have no love for the American Fascists. But if one of those is going to have more political, economic and diplomatic dominance, I'd rather it be the assholes across the Pacific Ocean and not the ones we share an increasingly uneasy border with.

      China and Cuba are radically different forms of communism (Maoism in China and Marxism in Cuba), so much so that we openly say China is communist in name only. China split from most other communist nations in the 60s and 70s, in the 80s they decided that the future was cozying up to western nations (US and what would become the EU). Cuba would have done the same in the 90s if the US would have permitted it, the US's hostility to Cuba is the biggest thing keeping Marxism alive there.

    • Just because countries are "communist" by the labels or stamps Americans put on them: does not mean they help each other out.

      Examples: Vietnam liberated Cambodia. Because USA supported Pol Pot - the biggest mass murderer after Hitler and Stalin (You have to roll that in your mind - US of awesomness supported the biggest living mass murderer at that time to get Vietnam down, wow!). So USA was to cowardly to go there and stop him. Cambodia is now a "democratic" Kingdom. Thanks to Vietnam.

      Vietnam and China are

  • ANNEX!!! (Score:3)

    by dogcar3604 ( 1482103 ) on Saturday March 15, 2025 @01:40PM (#65236007)
    Hilton, McDonaldf's, and the US tourist industry would love it!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Hilton, McDonaldf's, and the US tourist industry would love it!

      Didn't they have a revolution back in the 50s where that kind of imperialist thinking played a huge part in putting a communist in charge? Besides, the US isn't really any better at managing a power grid.. millions of Texans go without power whenever it gets a little chilly, maybe we should just give it back to the Spanish.

      • Some people can't just enjoy a joke... I would be happy to go back to the Spanish. The last time it snowed in Houston, we didn't even have a flicker. The power company is finally doing something about the trees on the power lines. Wind and solar are really picking up: https://www.ercot.com/gridmkti... [ercot.com]

  • They got themselves into this pickle. They can get themselves out. They can pile onto boats, and we can send them back. If they want to drop their totalitarian regime and open up the nation, then we can talk.

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