Decentralized energy aids Cuba’s power struggles

 

Nicholas Newman http://www.oxfordprospect.co.uk/Freelance-Journalist.html

Cuba’s power generation capacity is hampered by a severe lack of investment and the continued trade sanctions imposed by the United States, but in typical style it has improvised to make the best of a bad situation. Nicholas Newman looks at how distributed generation has brought some respite to the Caribbean island’s power struggles.
Cuba’s power sector is in crisis. Despite a recent multimillion dollar investment in a distributed power network, its customers are facing rolling blackouts and desperate orders to save electricity, as Cuba attempts to weather its dire economic crisis.

Current government spending cuts have forced the state-owned utility Union Electrica (UE) to downsize its budget for power station oil imports. For its hard-pressed customers this means regular nights without air conditioning and television.

The main problem is that Cuba lacks a sufficient economic base, which in turn means it is unable to afford and attract sufficiently adequate energy sector investment necessary to increase its gross domestic product (GDP). http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/print/volume-17/issue-12/power-reports/decentralized-energy-aids-cubarsquos-power-struggles.html