News · Energy
A Playa resident reports blackouts of more than 20 hours while the neighbouring circuit stays lit
A resident of circuit 1242, in the Havana municipality of Playa, complained on Saturday that his area suffers blackouts of more than 20 hours while the street lamps of neighbouring circuit 1244 stay on during the day. The authorities have not published their priority criteria.
A resident of circuit 1242, in the Havana municipality of Playa, complained on Saturday that his area suffers blackouts of more than 20 hours while street lamps stay on all day in a neighbouring circuit. He attached a picture of a street lamp lit in broad daylight at the corner of 19 and 48, which he identified as part of circuit 1244. The complaint was posted in a Facebook group called "Empresa eléctrica de la Habana," a users' space and not an official page of the utility, according to CiberCuba.
"While circuits in Playa such as 1242 have to endure blackouts of more than 20 hours, other circuits bordering ours such as 1244 stay on practically all the time," the resident wrote, questioning why some circuits appear to escape the restrictions even with a generation deficit. He made clear he is not asking for anyone's power to be cut, but for what he considers a fairer distribution.
In July the utility stopped organizing blackouts by blocks and began managing them by circuit. Since then complaints about differences in the length of cuts between nearby areas have piled up, and the authorities have not published the detailed priority criteria residents are demanding. In August resident Elizabeth González Aznar asked the minister of energy and mines, Vicente de la O Levy, to publish the list of priority circuits: "Why can't the people know which those priority circuits are, with their addresses?"
The Communist Party's organization secretary, Roberto Morales Ojeda, acknowledged in July that there are complaints of "improper conduct" in the power sector, though he attributed them to "four or five" workers. The backdrop is a severe deficit: on Monday the floating power plant Erol Bey, operated by Turkey's Karpowership, left the port of Havana for good and the country lost 63 MW of installed capacity; CiberCuba counts eight total collapses of the power system this year.
Sources: CiberCuba · Serie Yamacoa: Afectación eléctrica máxima prevista en el horario pico (Unión Eléctrica (UNE))
Data updated: 2026-11-08T04:15:00.000Z