Cuban Regime Masks Cienfuegos Power Plant Delay as a Victory

On Friday, May 2, the third unit of the “Carlos Manuel de Céspedes” Thermoelectric Plant in Cienfuegos was finally connected to the National Electric System (SEN). This occurred nearly three weeks past the deadline initially promised by the Electric Union (UNE), which had projected the completion of repairs and the unit's reintegration by mid-April. Instead of acknowledging the delay, the Cuban regime spun the setback into a narrative of technical success and collective effort, aiming to counter the growing public perception of inefficiency and improvisation.

The third unit had been out of operation for six months due to a malfunction following a nationwide blackout. In January, a fire in the plant's electrical control rooms further complicated the situation, extending the maintenance work. Earlier this year, plant General Manager José Osvaldo González Rodríguez told Granma, the official newspaper, that work was ongoing on block 3's turbine—a "very complex task" that "takes time." He assured that it would be completed by mid-February and that synchronization with the SEN was scheduled for the first half of April, with a nominal power of 158 MW.

Propaganda Over Accountability

Despite the history of setbacks, the plant's reactivation has been hailed by official media and regime spokespeople as a “worker's achievement” and a “demonstration of resilience,” attempting to gloss over the failure to meet deadlines and the tangible impact on the populace, especially in Cienfuegos, where prolonged power outages have persisted for months. Images from the National Television News (NTV) portrayed an almost epic scene of euphoria in the plant's control room as technicians and operators monitored the generation load.

A Stark Comparison with European Efficiency

The regime's narrative focused on the "joint effort" of workers from various provinces, their “daily sacrifice,” and the “technical victory” of contributing 80 megawatts to the SEN, with promises to reach 120. Yet, there was silence on the delay, fire, and material conditions that prevented meeting the announced timelines. This communication strategy aligns with a pattern identified by independent media: converting each shortfall into a symbolic victory, avoiding accountability. As reported by CiberCuba, this is a deliberate narrative strategy: creating the appearance of resolution to avoid acknowledging failure.

The contrast is particularly stark when compared to the recent massive blackout in Spain and Portugal, where the national electric system was restored in under 24 hours. In that instance, several Cuban official voices echoed the European event to justify Cuba's failures, suggesting blackouts were a global phenomenon. However, what took Spain a single day to resolve took Cuba over six months, and the anticipated reactivation was still delayed by almost three weeks, illustrating not a comparable situation (a system-wide collapse versus a single thermoelectric unit's failure) but a chasm in management efficiency and response capacity.

Systemic Issues and Public Discontent

The case of the Cienfuegos thermoelectric plant is not isolated; it is part of a broader policy of obscuring the structural collapse of Cuba’s electric system, which struggles to stay afloat with quick fixes, rhetoric of resistance, propaganda, and unfulfilled promises. Meanwhile, the real causes of the crisis—technological obsolescence, poor planning, lack of investment, and unproductive centralization of the energy sector—remain unaddressed in official discourse.

Cubans, however, face a different reality. Generation figures fall short of covering the minimum demand, and blackout scheduling is chaotic. In this context, touting the return of a faulty unit as a milestone, when it should have been operational weeks earlier, only highlights the disconnect between government rhetoric and the daily lives of the populace. More than a technical victory, the synchronization of the CTE in Cienfuegos is yet another indication of the organizational and operational failure of Miguel Díaz-Canel's regime, which can no longer hide, neither with epic speeches nor with propagandistic displays, the state's inability to provide a basic and sustained electricity service.