A woman holds a portable power charger during a power outage in Havana, Cuba, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
On Monday, Cuba experienced its third nationwide power outage since the beginning of the year, the state electricity company said. The impoverished island was already struggling to keep the lights on before US President Donald Trump in January imposed an oil blockade, depleting already dwindling fuel supplies for Cuba’s power plants.“There has been a total outage of the national electricity generation system,” the UN energy body wrote on X, adding that it was “investigating the causes.” The power outage is the eighth on the island of 9.6 million since late 2024. It comes as the state imposes draconian power outages across the country — for more than 24 hours in parts of Havana and more than 70 hours in some rural areas — in an increasingly desperate attempt to save fuel.
Power outages have been a feature of life for years on the communist-run island, where the electricity generation system, made up mainly of old Soviet-era plants, is in disarray.