10 Million Cubans Suffer Nationwide Power Outage (cnn.com)
- Reference: 0176733573
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/03/15/1616223/10-million-cubans-suffer-nationwide-power-outage
- Source link: https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/14/americas/cuba-power-blackout-darkness-intl-hnk/index.html
> Video filmed by CNN in the capital Havana showed streets and buildings shrouded in total darkness, as people used electric torches to navigate the streets. By Saturday morning, the Cuban government officials said that "microsystems" — pockets of electricity — had been restored in some cities. However, it remains unclear when the island's power system would be fully online again and most people remained in the dark...
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> It marks the latest in a [2]series of failures on the Caribbean island struggling with creaking infrastructure, natural disasters and economic turmoil... For [3]nearly a week in October , most of Cuba suffered near-total blackouts, the worst energy outages in decades. While Cubans are used to frequent power outages, to have another nationwide backcourt — the fourth in six months — was unsettling for many people who need electricity to cook and refrigerate food that otherwise spoils quickly in the tropical heat.
"Many residents posted on online sites looking for propane, charcoal, and fuel for generators..."
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/14/americas/cuba-power-blackout-darkness-intl-hnk/index.html
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/04/americas/cuba-power-blackout-cuts-intl/index.html
[3] https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/19/americas/cuba-second-nationwide-blackout-intl/index.html
Divide and conquer? (Score:2)
Maybe having one huge grid is a bad thing? Obviously there are benefits of sharing power generation, but if enough generators go offline, and/or the overall demand exceeds generation capacity, maybe they'd do better to break the grid into smaller chunks? (I'm asking, I don't know the various tradeoffs / economies of scale, etc.)
Or, maybe they just need a more modernized control system that can take individual substations offline so as to not overtax the main grid? Of course, deciding who gets taken offline
Re: (Score:2)
> Maybe having one huge grid is a bad thing? Obviously there are benefits of sharing power generation, but if enough generators go offline, and/or the overall demand exceeds generation capacity, maybe they'd do better to break the grid into smaller chunks? (I'm asking, I don't know the various tradeoffs / economies of scale, etc.)
> Or, maybe they just need a more modernized control system that can take individual substations offline so as to not overtax the main grid? Of course, deciding who gets taken offline prioritization is a different problem.
Cuba already has that, is called "distributed generation", it helps in case of huracanes and such. PRoblem is this is based on diesel generators, and they do not have the money to buy the diesel in the international markets, so...
to have another nationwide backcourt (Score:2)
backcourt?
Is proofreading dead?
looking on the bright side (Score:2)
I'd imagine by now the electrical engineers in Cuba are amassing some very valuable experience in black-starting power grids.
It wouldn't surprise me if we see an exodus of those engineers to other places in the world that value that experience. In regions where the power is usually stable, it's next to impossible to find people with actual experience in black starting. It's great that you know the manual back and forth, but actual experience in executing those processes during an actual grid failure is ra
Re: (Score:2)
You're reminding me of the story of Apollo 13 where they had to very carefully restart systems.
Re: (Score:2)
> It wouldn't surprise me if we see an exodus of those engineers to other places in the world that value that experience
Problem is, emigration out of cuba is highly regulated by the goverment. And, the country being an island, is quite difficult to get out illegally. Not as difficult as north korea, but quite difficult.
You would be better off trying to poach engineers from 2019 Venezuela.