Sawt Falasteen - Cuba opens solar park hoping to stave off blackouts

The dire state of Cuba's power generation infrastructure, largely dependent on oil from Venezuela, has seen the country of 10 million people struggle with near daily outages in some regions in recent months.

In some provinces, electricity access is limited to a few hours a day.

Cuba's eight outdated thermoelectric plants, most of them online since the 1980s and '90s, suffer frequent breakdowns.

Under a US trade embargo since the 1960s and battling its worse economic crisis in decades, the country also uses floating electric plants rented from Turkish companies, and generators fueled by crude oil Cuba is struggling to pay for.

The government in Havana has said it wants to install at least 55 solar parks by year's end to generate 1,200 megawatts of power -- raising its renewable energy generation from about five to 12 percent.

The first such park, "the product of collaboration with the sister nation of #China," according to the presidency, went online Friday.

Another is due to follow next week.

"It's a beauty," the office of President Miguel Diaz-Canel added in a post on X accompanied by images of rows upon rows of shiny solar panels.

The park has a capacity of 21.8 megawatts that will "progressively reduce the annoying blackouts during daylight hours" in the populous Havana municipality, state news portal Cubadebate said of the project.

Earlier this month, the government was forced to shutter schools and close businesses for two days to save energy after electricity supply dropped to half of demand.

By 2030, the country aims to generate more than a third of its electricity from solar parks and other renewable sources.

Y.AlMasri--SF-PST