EFE (via 14ymedio), Ernesto Mastrascusa, Havana, 4 April 2024 — The technical director of the Electric Union of Cuba (UNE), Lázaro Guerra, recognizes that the country would need about 10 billion dollars to repair its thermoelectric plants. The figure, estimated by independent specialists residing in the United States, such as Jorge Piñón and Emilio Morales, “is not crazy,” the official said, without giving further details, in an interview with the Spanish agency EFE published on Thursday.
To reach summer with a “positive” level of generation, Guerra explained, the UNE has planned “quite thorough” maintenance on two of its seven obsolete plants.
Otherwise, nothing new was offered by the official, but the pessimistic outlook is clear, since the country does not have the resources to renew the thermoelectric plants, and there are no foreign investors interested in this sector: “The crisis is not over.”
Reiterating what Vicente de la O Levy, Minister of Energy and Mines, said on March 16, just a day before the recent mass protests on the Island, the director of the UNE said that the main reason for the power cuts is the lack of oil. “The serious problem that has marked the effects of the service has fundamentally been the fuel,” he told EFE.
“Performing capital maint