Cuba suffers third nationwide blackout in 10 days as US fuel blockade deepens energy crisis

Cuba's national electricity grid collapsed completely on Tuesday, 14 July, marking the third nationwide blackout in less than ten days and the fifth since the start of 2026. The state-run electricity company UNE reported that the total disconnection of the National Electric System occurred at 11:05 local time (15:05 GMT), affecting the entire island of 9.6 million people. Authorities attributed the failure to a sudden oscillation caused by the unexpected shutdown of a thermoelectric plant, which created a sharp imbalance between generation and demand.

A grid on the brink

Cuba's power infrastructure is under extreme strain. The country relies on seven ageing thermoelectric plants, many dating from the 1960s to 1980s, which frequently break down or require maintenance shutdowns. Fuel shortages have made the national grid more vulnerable to outages and rendered emergency backup generators almost unusable, according to UNE. The two previous nationwide blackouts, both occurring the previous week, each took more than 24 hours to restore, and even after reconnection, rolling blackouts continued due to low electricity production. By Tuesday evening, only 11.5% of homes in Havana, a city of 1.7 million, had power.

The fuel blockade

Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy told a press conference that the crisis has been aggravated by Washington's policies. "This happens fundamentally because of the situation of our electrical system, sharpened after the United States' order," he said. In January, President Donald Trump imposed an oil blockade on Cuba, part of a pressure campaign aimed at ending six decades of communist rule. Since then, Washington has permitted the arrival of only one Russian tanker, which delivered 100,000 tonnes of crude in March. Those reserves are now exhausted. The minister described the situation as "practically a war" and insisted there is "a total absence of fuel" on the island, with no access to spare parts for the thermoelectric plants.

It is practically a war that we are living through.

Daily life in the dark

In recent weeks, blackouts in Havana have exceeded 30 consecutive hours, while in the interior provinces outages can stretch for several days. Residents have expressed growing frustration. María Caridad Álvarez, a 62-year-old housewife, told AFP she cooked beans when power returned in the morning, only for it to cut again shortly after. "It feels like there is no solution," she said. She added that the energy crisis "is killing a person's enthusiasm to live and to do something for this", referring to the revolution. David Matías Rodríguez, an 82-year-old retiree, said his main worry was that the few items in his refrigerator would spoil. In the worst-affected neighbourhoods, residents have vented their anger by setting fire to piles of rubbish in the streets or banging pots and pans, often from inside their homes.

When I woke up this morning, the power was back and I cooked some beans. Now, I went out and it's off again. It feels like there is no solution.

Geopolitical pressure

Relations between Washington and Havana have deteriorated sharply since the start of the year. The US removed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a long-standing ally of Cuba, in early January and brought him to the US to face federal charges. Venezuela had been Cuba's main supplier of subsidised oil, and under US pressure, Mexico also halted fuel shipments. According to the International Energy Agency, Cuba was producing only about 40% of the oil it consumed as of 2023, leaving it heavily dependent on imports. The Trump administration has also ramped up sanctions against Cuban state-owned businesses and indicted former president Raúl Castro over the downing of two civilian planes three decades ago. At a UN General Assembly debate last week, US Ambassador Michael Waltz said Cuba's leaders were responsible for the electricity shortages.

Change your ways and turn the lights back on for your people.

What comes next

Cuba has launched a large-scale solar park construction programme, begun two years ago, but it has not yet offset the decline in thermal generation. The government has given no timeline for stabilising the grid. With fuel reserves exhausted and no new tanker arrivals authorised by Washington, the prospect of further collapses remains acute. The repeated blackouts have already sparked scattered protests in Havana, with residents chanting "turn on the lights" during last week's outages.