Havana/This Monday, while the Cuban Electrical Union (UNE) announced the shutdown of the thermoelectric plant Antonio Guiteras –the largest generating plant in the country– due to a “flat in the boiler”, the official newspaper Granma proudly celebrated the 60 years of the plant Antonio Maceo Grajalesknown as Renté, in Santiago de Cuba, a plant whose useful life expired 30 years ago, which accumulates serious breakdowns and its only three operational units are out of service.
Román Pérez Castañeda, general director of Guiteras, reported that the cooling process of the plant will take between 30 and 36 hours and that only then will specialists be able to access the area, determine the magnitude of the damage and proceed to repair it.
The new breakdown of the Matanzas power plant once again puts the national electrical system (SEN) in a critical situation. At the time it was disconnected, the plant generated 170 MW. With this failure, added to the other incidents reported by the UNE report As of this Monday, a deficit of 1,845 MW is expected during peak hours tonight, for a national demand of 3,020 MW.
Each interruption for repair has been temporary: the plant fails again shortly after reintegrating into the system
The plant, which has been in operation for more than 36 years, suffers from insufficient maintenance, a shortage of spare parts and chronic deterioration that the authorities cannot solve. Each interruption for repair has been temporary: the plant fails again shortly after reintegrating into the system. Their repeated disconnections have caused most of the general blackouts of the last year and a half.
It is known that Guiteras was designed, manufactured and assembled by the French firm Alstom. Starting in 2015, when the American General Electric Company bought the French companyaccess to French credit that channeled all supplies and spare parts was lost.
The indignation of the population – reflected in the comments to the publication on the UNE Facebook account – underlines that the energy crisis, which the Government attributes to the US embargo, has existed long before, due to the structural failures of the system itself.
Meanwhile, almost as a mockery, Granma celebrates that “the main fuel is ingenuity”, listing the precarious solutions to the deterioration of the sixty-year-old Renté thermoelectric plant in Santiago de Cuba.
The official tribute – similar to the one already paid to him last year– seems like an industrial survival manual for a plant that has already doubled its expected operating time and survives amidst constant failures. According to the UNE report this Monday, unit 5 of the Renté is damaged, while units 3 and 6 are out of service for maintenance.
These incidents are added to the long list of failures reported today by the UNE: a breakdown in Unit 3 of the CTE Felton, another breakdown of unit 6 of the Diez de Octubre, the aforementioned breakdown of the Guiteras and the stoppage for maintenance of units 5 and 6 of Mariel and unit 5 of Nuevitas.
In the 90s, after losing its Soviet suppliers, the plant was modernized with technological advice from French companies to rehabilitate two of its units.
The thermoelectric plant that is celebrated for its antiquity – called “La Renté”, after the peninsula on which it is located – was founded in 1966 with Soviet help and designed to produce energy from fossil fuels.
In the 90s, upon losing its Soviet suppliers, the plant was modernized with technological advice from French companies to rehabilitate two of its 100 MW units and make it run on national crude oil, to avoid importing fuel. The name of the French company or the cost of the operation have never been revealed.
Although the full capacity of the Antonio Maceo has not been reached for decades, due to a lack of resources for maintenance and repair, the plant is still considered essential to sustain the SEN in the eastern region of the country.
The general director of the plant, Jesús Aguilar Hernández, admits that the passage of time has made it impossible to contribute to the system the 500 MW that the plant provided in its best times: “with units 3, 5 and 6 – at maximum capacity – only 285 MW are reached.” These same units are out of service today, according to the UNE report.
According to Ecured, from 2023 lThe only operating units of the Renté They are 3, 5 and 6, since unit 1 was decommissioned, and unit 4 left temporarily.
In the statements to GranmaAguilar boasts that before 1959 “the country was barely electrified” – an ironic reminder of the prolonged daily blackouts in today’s Cuba – and that it is a “privilege” that the plant celebrates 60 years of operation.
“It constitutes a challenge that previous generations left us and that we must leave to future generations,” boasts Aguilar, suggesting the continuity of the plant, and emphasizes: “More than the equipment, what is sustained is the quality of its group of workers.”
Faced with the problems of fuel shortages, lack of spare parts and frozen imports, Aguilar insists that “they do not expect anything from outside, when solutions can be generated here,” and adds, as if they were oil alchemists with psychic powers: “The motto is not only to operate, but to create everything possible, because the main fuel is ingenuity.”
Given the lack of parts, the workers themselves are forced to improvise their own
Regarding unit 5 and 6 that are offline today – 5 damaged, 6 in maintenance –, Ángel Fabars Borlot, electromechanical head of the Power Plant Maintenance Company (Emce), admits: “Unit 6 is declared for an extended repair, and in unit 5 we had to deal with a breakdown in the hydrogen seals of the generator.”
“They are very complex tasks because these are enormous machines. The smallest piece weighs tons and the clearances are millimeters,” confesses Fabars Borlot, without detailing how the magic of ingenuity will solve these problems.
Given the lack of parts, the workers themselves are forced to improvise their own. Eduardo Morales García, head of the Machining workshop – about to receive the medal for 40 years of service – says: “When a job arrives we have to prepare almost everything, the blade with which it is going to be cut, the bar, the material, even the saw to cut the tubes.”
Morales gives as an example the manufacturing of some axles for the water pumps of unit 5, “a piece that came from Russia, but they gave us the task of making it here.”
Renté’s Industrial Maintenance specialist, Mayra CcCalle Irsula – an engineer who has dedicated more than 35 years of her life to the plant – explained that the main conditions to “guarantee continuity in generation” are remote work and teleworking, when possible, and the unification “in one transport for operators, kitchen staff, security and technicians.” He did not explain, however, that these are measures ordered by the Ministry of Labor to avoid layoffs of state companies, due to the unprecedented crisis that the country is suffering, aggravated by the United States oil blockade.
Fuel shortages not only shut down machines, but also paralyze transportation, disrupt shifts, and put operations at risk. The lack of personnel, due to the transportation problem, slows down the processes. “The response is slower because we do not have the necessary number of people,” admits the electromechanical head of the Emce.
Maximiliano Guisande Agüero, head of Dynamic Teams – with 56 years of work at Renté – and leader of the repair of the damaged unit 5, comments that his staff tries to encourage the arrival and retention of young people through work agreements with pre-university schools, polytechnics and the University of Oriente, involving students in work practices and training. This strategy, he assures, could be beneficial due to the lack of personnel, although for the moment the result has not left the conditional mode.
