Cubans cheer promise of blackout-free summer

Cubans cheer promise of blackout-free summer
By Marc Frank in Havana
Published: June 16 2006 20:15 | Last updated: June 16 2006 20:15

Cuba’s sweltering, mosquito-plagued summers have not been kind to its
11m inhabitants since the Soviet Union’s demise. For 15 years, daily
power outages left homes in the dark and without fans to battle the heat
and insects, while vacationing youths made do for hours without
television or music and water pumps went idle.

But in the most significant sign yet that the post-Soviet crisis may
finally be coming to an end, the lights have remained on this summer
because of what President Fidel Castro calls his “energy revolution”.

At 79, and having spent 47 years in power, Cuba’s “Maximum Leader” is
still capable of grandiose schemes he insists will solve Cuba’s and
other developing countries’ problems.

The $2bn (€1.6bn) plan includes hundreds of container-sized generators
in place of power plants, upgrading the energy grid and supplying every
household with more efficient kitchen appliances from China. The state
is also replacing millions of light bulbs with energy-saving fluorescent
ones.

Generously financed Venezuelan oil from President Hugo Chávez, a $2bn
increase in annual revenues from service exports and cheap Chinese
credits have allowed Cuba to begin emerging from crisis and are helping
to pay for the programme.

Mr Castro says greater efficiencies will quickly amortise the cost as
energy and fuel are provided by the state at subsidised prices and
state-run factories and offices will now remain open.

“In less than eight months conditions have been created that guarantee
that there will be no blackouts in our country due to a lack of
generating capacity,” Yadira García, minister for basic industry, said
this month.

Mr Castro says the generators have added the equivalent of three
350-megawatt power plants that would cost $1.7bn and take six years to
build.

The Cuban president says the island’s seven aging oil-fired power plants
can generate about 2,700 megawatts, but operate at only 60 per cent of
capacity due to breakdowns and maintenance halts.

For the past five years, a lack of capacity has forced the country to
close some 200 factories and adopt other emergency measures in the
summer, yet blackouts have grown worse.

Mr Castro says the less efficient oil-burning power plants will now be
phased out as more generators come on line, while keeping two newer
gas-fired ones and perhaps building more.

The generators are being grouped in more than 100 clusters and connected
to the electrical grid so they can feed the national system or operate
independently when hurricanes strike.

“The unit consists of 32 generators in eight groups...capable of
generating 60.4 megawatts,” the state-run news agency said of one
cluster in eastern Holguin province.

The plan has many Cubans applauding as they enjoy their first summer
without blackouts since 1991.

“The last two summers were terrible but this year has been very
different. No heat, no darkness, I have water and can watch television
at my pleasure,” says Carlos Peña of eastern Holguín province.

A Havana housewife was not satisfied, stating that the lights might be
back on, but transportation was worse than ever and government prices
too high compared to government wages.

“There is no doubt it is a clever, if expensive, way to quickly solve
the immediate problem,” a European diplomat said.

“The question we all have is how will they co-ordinate repairs and fuel
for generators scattered across the country and what will happen in a
few years when guarantees expire,” she said.

Some foreign electrical engineers say basing a power system on
generators is strange indeed. “Generators have never been used as the
basis of a power system before, especially in a humid, tropical country.
They are advertised on company web pages as temporary solutions,” said one.

Mr Castro is clearly confident, stating in a recent speech that Cuba is
showing the world how to cope with diminishing energy resources and
soaring prices. Besides, he said, with an eye to the north and the
invasion of Iraq, “our entire power grid could have been knocked out
with just seven bombs”.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006

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