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Cuba's Guiteras plant breaks down the same day Felton starts a 21-day overhaul

Cuba's state utility reported on Wednesday that Unit 1 of the Antonio Guiteras power plant went offline because of a leak in the economizer, hours after the Felton plant left the grid. The utility had forecast a 1,960 MW shortfall against demand of 2,900 MW.

Shortly after four in the afternoon on Wednesday, November 11, Cuba's Unión Eléctrica (UNE) said Unit 1 of the Antonio Guiteras thermal power plant, in Matanzas, was offline because of a leak in the economizer. The utility gave no estimate of when it would return or of the extent of the damage, and said its crews were assessing and repairing the fault.

The breakdown coincides with the Lidio Ramón Pérez plant, known as Felton, in Mayarí (Holguín), leaving the grid for a 21-day "energy overhaul" that began on Wednesday. Its acting director, Víctor Hugo González, said a full washing of the boiler, which has run 14 months without that procedure, will take about 15 days, and that 160 outstanding technical reports are due to be cleared. Rated at 260 MW, Felton had been supplying barely 110 MW in recent weeks.

Before the Matanzas fault became known, the utility's daily bulletin forecast a 1,960 MW shortfall at peak hours against demand of 2,900 MW, and recorded outages through all 24 hours of the previous day, including the small hours. The authorities had not updated the national figure to account for the capacity lost with Guiteras offline.

Guiteras, commissioned in 1988, went offline in October on the 9th, 14th, 20th, 24th and 27th, according to Periódico Cubano, and that last outage caused a partial blackout in Pinar del Río. Its managers estimate that a full overhaul would require about 180 days offline and the replacement of around 500 tubes.

Sources: 14ymedio · Cubadebate · Periódico Cubano · Diario de Cuba · Serie Yamacoa: Afectación eléctrica máxima prevista en el horario pico (Unión Eléctrica (UNE))

Data updated: 2026-11-12T04:15:00.000Z

Cuba's Guiteras plant breaks down the same day Felton starts a 21-day overhaul | Yamacoa Observatory