The Santiago Rojas Salinas photovoltaic solar park, located in the La Cuba agricultural hub of Baraguá municipality, began feeding power into the National Electrical System (SEN) this Sunday following the synchronisation of four of its seven inverters.

The Ciego de Ávila Electric Company confirmed this milestone via its official Facebook profile, crediting construction teams and specialists for delivering the renewable energy facility one month ahead of schedule.

This 21.87-megawatt (MW) installation becomes Ciego de Ávila’s third major solar park, joining the previously completed Cruce de la Trocha and Carolina facilities as part of Cuba’s national renewable energy investment programme.

The infrastructure, featuring technology from the People’s Republic of China, will officially inaugurate on Friday 25 July, honouring the 72nd anniversary of the assaults on Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes barracks, for which the Avilanian territory hosts national commemorations.

Nearly a thousand workers from Ciego de Ávila’s Construction and Assembly Enterprise and the Provincial Electric Company laboured dawn to dusk for months – supported by other entities – to meet this deadline.

Technically, the park fulfils two critical requirements: proximity under five kilometres to a 110 kV substation (in this case, mere metres away), and an eight-kilometre separation from similar installations, explained Daniel Pérez García, General Director of the Provincial Electric Company.

Construction complexities included challenging rocky subsoil at shallow depths, necessitating atypical sequencing: «We prioritised trenching for underground cabling before advancing other phases,» noted Pedro Manuel Évora Hernández, Deputy Director of the Construction and Assembly Enterprise.

With this addition to Ciego de Ávila’s existing 15.6 MW solar capacity – plus three more 21.87 MW parks and one 5 MW facility under development – the province will reach 108 MW of installed solar power, sufficient to cover its peak midday demand.