Close to the ruins of a nuclear plant, employees rush in a rush 44,000 photo voltaic panels Between containers and forks coming and going. Is considered one of 55 photovoltaic parks that Cuba builds to scale back its dependence from the oil and attempt to Overcome the vitality disaster.
Close to the “La Yuca” photovoltaic park, within the central province of Cienfuegos, dozens of containers are linked to Chinese language indicators, whereas forks wrapped in polvars transfer with panels gathered between the concrete tables organized to choose them up.
“We’re wiring, putting panels and driving,” says an individual loaded with the work that have to be accomplished earlier than Might.
Cuba faces difficulties within the uncooked extraction utilized by its thermoelectric getting old, in addition to to import gas that require different nation’s vitality infrastructure applied sciences. That’s the reason the issues of energy provide and Whitening is repeated.
“The oil invoice is the most important in Cuba; greater than meals, greater than medicines, greater than everybody,” stated Vicente de la or Levy, Minister of Vitality and Mining, within the Official Gazette Particle
“Greater than half of all of the gas utilized by the nation is to generate electrical energy,” the minister provides.
Vitality disaster, a pattern of the financial disaster in Cuba. Picture: AP from 55 photo voltaic parks deliberate for 2025, 5 will likely be on this strategic province, the headquarters of an vital port of the nation, one of many eight present thermolectrics, a refinery and an deserted nuclear undertaking of the 1980s.
Cienfuegueos hoped that with the arrival of photo voltaic parks of their territory they’d finish quickly Interruptions of greater than 16 hours They help every day, however the vitality they may generate will go to the nationwide electrical energy community to distribute it within the nation, the authorities defined.
Reap the benefits of the “mice” of electrical energy
Belkys Vila, a 59 -year -old seller who sells garments in his yard, lives close to a newlyfriend photovoltaic area in Cienfuegos. “We spend extra time with out present than present,” he assures AFP.
His neighbor Juanita Roa, 70, has cooked once more with coal. “Right here ladies throw themselves as much as three within the morning to clean, to cook dinner” throughout “the present report,” The Blight shouts.
The delicate electrical infrastructure was dropped 4 occasions within the final six months, leaving the place fully darkish for days.
A automotive passes in entrance of an electrical energy producing plant in Havana, in a 2024 picture. Picture: AP “Why the panels turn out to be the largest undertaking? First, as a result of investments are inexpensive as a result of they turn out to be sooner as a result of they are often distributed all through the nation,” the minister explains.
Funding of Millioners with China’s help
This expertise means an funding of millionaires that Cuba, immersed in a deepening crisisFace to China’s help.
In line with specialists, the typical worldwide value of an put in MW capability varies between $ 800,000 and a million dollars.
The federal government plans to supply 1,200 MW with a clear vitality on daily basis on the finish of this 12 months, in a spot the place the every day deficit is about 1,500 MW.
Jorge Piñón, a researcher on the American College of Texas, applauds the measure to succeed in a 37% protection of renewable vitality in 2030, however questions the shortage of “giant storage batteries to make use of photo voltaic vitality at evening” when peak consumption time happens.
Batteries “play an important function within the trendy electrical energy community by balancing provide and demand,” explains Piñón.
The primary containers to deal with these batteries are already on the island, “however they nonetheless shouldn’t have the battery inside,” the minister says.
Much less relying on the oil
Many years in the past Cuba tried to desert his dependence on uncooked.
Solely 15 kilometers from the “La Yuca” park, the imposing metal dice constructed to guard which might be a central digital Juraguá reactor.
The undertaking was canceled in 1992 by Fidel Castro (1926-2016), after A foreign money with the Soviet one billion dollars and the arrival of physicists, engineers and different extremely educated specialists.
Eliker Machín, a thermophysical educated within the then Soviet Union, joined solely 24 years within the group that overseen development.
The cancellation “for many individuals right here was a stroke,” says the 60 -year -old man, staying within the heart of the nuclear metropolis, deliberate to accommodate atomic vegetation employees.
Machín, who nonetheless lives in that place, now creates pigs, however continues to talk of atoms and protons of the identical ardour that he felt for the irritated undertaking.