After an extensive debate on the national electricity situation, the Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, intervened in the plenary. He stressed that today we have less generation capacity than what we are demanding.
The causes are known; he said and argued that three fundamental elements are associated with the blockade.
“The blockade has prevented us from financing, it has prevented us from getting spare parts, and therefore all maintenance and all repairs have gone off schedule.”
He stressed that "we have also had faults in the distribution of fuel due to availability and that does not allow us to cover the deficits of thermal generation with distributed generation."
The president regretted that in less than three months there have been two accidents that have taken more than 400 MW of generation out of us, affecting three plants. "One of the plants is not going to recover in the short term, and the other two are working tirelessly."
He affirmed that the country has designed a strategy and recognized the work of the electricians, many hours without rest and in very difficult conditions, subjected to high temperatures.
Díaz-Canel said that due to the national energy situation, production processes have been stopped and the economy is being affected, "but it is about affecting the population as little as possible."
He asked the population for understanding, “because here no one puts out blackouts to bother anyone. Here we are working hard, with few resources and with all the talent that our workers, our engineers, our technicians may have. It is very tense to manage a situation like this, because there is almost no reserve.”
The president added that “he understands the logical discomfort and dissatisfaction that exists in the population and that the main leaders of the Party, the Government, of the mass organizations, are in close relationship with the population, trying to encourage the people, willing to explain, argue, help and support”.
“It is a moment in which we have to remain united, given the rigor imposed on us by an objective material situation, as has happened in other moments of the Revolution that have also been hard.”
In this sense, he called for solidarity and to avoid actions of nonconformity, some of which generate violence and acts of vandalism, which respond to those who block us and prevent us from acquiring the means to get out of this situation.
In addition, “this does not resolve the situation we have. The situation is going to be resolved by complying with the strategy in which we are committed”.
Referring to the financial persecution to which the country is subject due to the blockade, he stated "we are persecuted by any negotiation that we have to make in order to have the supplies we need."
“Our plan has to be one of understanding, of solidarity, as always, of resistance. Of defiance, because imperialism is not the one that is going to solve the problems of electricity in Cuba. In addition, nobody is going to help us solve electricity problems. We have to solve those ourselves. Looking for income and financing, working with our technicians, prioritizing a group of investments”.
He referred to the energy crisis that the world is experiencing today, with the rise in oil prices and other fuels.
According to the Cuban president, resources are being allocated to all these investments. “They carry money, and sometimes you have the financing but it takes time to materialize due to the time in which it is negotiated, pieces that are made to order that take time to arrive in the country. There are other investments that last for years, for example, an investment in a thermoelectric block takes four or five.”
Díaz-Canel assured that technologies and types of business have been found with which energy can be generated in a short time and quickly.
“There is a strategy in place and a group of negotiations are taking place. In the remainder of the year, there are resources to make major repairs. There are other negotiations that are on the right track in relation to renewable energy sources. But all that takes time."
The president immediately called for a group of actions to improve generation capacity. “We have to focus on reordering the load in the peaks and identify the consumers that we have to take out of those peaks. To do that with studies, explanation and argumentation”.
In his speech, he insisted on the importance of guaranteeing that maintenance and repairs are carried out in the shortest possible time with efficiency, but with quality. In addition, he stressed that blackouts must be better planned to try to prevent the affectation of the same circuit from being as short as possible.
“You have to save everything you can. It is very difficult to ask that of the people who have resisted all these hardships with dignity and stoicism; even more so when we are not delivering what we owe. However, if we save and demand less, we have more capacity to serve. That is the most revolutionary, altruistic and supportive thing we can do now”, concluded the Cuban president.