This past Sunday, a fault on the 220 kV Nuevitas-Las Tunas line caused the disconnection of the eastern provinces from the National Electrical System (SEN); however, this did not cause a total system collapse, so, by 1:25 a.m. on Monday, all affected provinces once again had power.

This past Sunday, a fault on the 220 kV Nuevitas-Las Tunas line caused the disconnection of the eastern provinces from the National Electrical System (SEN); however, this did not cause a total system collapse, so, by 1:25 a.m. on Monday, all affected provinces once again had power.

This was explained to the press by engineer Lázaro Guerra Hernández, Director of Electricity at the Ministry of Energy and Mines, who highlighted that the incident was caused by adverse meteorological conditions.

“One line was already de-energised due to high tension in the region, and the storm caused the second 220 kV line to go out of service. This generated a transfer trip, separating the eastern zone from the rest of the country,” he detailed.

According to a report from Canal Caribe, Guerra Hernández specified that the system is currently operating in a stable manner, however the deficit in generation capacity that had already been forecast persists.

He highlighted that the fault was transient and did not leave permanent damage to the electrical infrastructure.

Furthermore, he specified that unit six of the Máximo Gómez thermoelectric plant, in Mariel, which went out due to frequency oscillations during the event. At the time of writing this note, it was in the process of starting up and about to synchronise with the SEN.

Following this situation, the effects remain in the order of more than 1 600 megawatts due to the generation deficit, in addition to the limitations in the thermal plants and in distributed generation.