Having electricity isn’t a luxury. Lacking it causes every family to suffer, not only from not being able to turn on the TV or charge their phone, but—even more essential—from being left without options for cooking or preserving food that requires refrigeration.
And the country suffers, unable to set foot on the right path to the development it urgently needs, because progress cannot be made with a factory shut down due to a power shortage, nor are procedures possible with the office shut down, nor is communication fluid or knowledge sufficiently reproduced because, with the electricity, telephone and internet coverage are lost.
The prolonged instability of the National Electric System (SEN), due to constant power outages in the thermal base, in addition to fuel shortages that have limited the operation of distributed generation, means that the majority of the population, greatly affected by the extremely long power outages, is placing all their expectations on the synchronization of the large solar parks currently under construction.
Photo: Dunia Álvarez Palacios
Vicente de la O Levy, Cuban Minister of Energy and Mines, granted a detailed interview to Granma to answer and explain several questions about the progressive recovery of electricity generation, ongoing investments, their sustainability, what will most quickly contribute to reversing the current crisis, and the revitalization of other sources that would diversify the country’s energy matrix.
–Minister, let’s start from the possible—and announced—ideal that, by 2025, around fifty wind farms will be incorporated into generation, and that at least 1,000 megawatts (MW) of availability will be exceeded through this means. If we compare this with the current average daily deficit, will this mean, mathematically, that at least two-thirds of the current blackouts will be reduced? Can this be interpreted in this way?
–The concern is logical, logical and intelligent. Our people are well-trained and familiar with the terms megawatt, deficit, generation, loss… and questions like these arise.
“But the recovery isn’t just about solar photovoltaic parks. It’s a program, of course, in which the most notable or most innovative, the most different, are solar photovoltaic parks.
“But the electrical system must be viewed from different angles. There’s one issue: fuel, because fuel production—just as the National Electric System was depressed—was also declining; to the point that it was analyzed that there would come a time when we wouldn’t even have fuel for the thermoelectric plants. We’re talking about domestic crude oil and the accompanying gas to generate electricity.
“Ultimately, in the approved design, discussed with the Cuban academic community, with universities, with research centers—and this is work that has been going on for many years—the conclusion was reached that we must strive for independence from fuel imports.
“We have always been dependent on fuel imports, to the point that the oil bill is Cuba’s largest; more than food, more than medicine, more than everything. And of the fuel imported to sustain the entire economy, electricity generation is the largest consumer: more than half of all the fuel the country uses is for generating electricity.
“Agriculture, water pumping, harvesting, transportation, the entire domestic economic chain—everything consumes less than electricity generation.
“And yet, domestic fuel production was declining, while the trend was for thermoelectric power plants’ consumption of oil and gas to exceed domestic production. That, on the one hand.
“Then the electrical issue began to become complicated, not only because of the technical state of the thermoelectric plants…”
–Was this decline related to the availability of natural oil and gas, or to the capacity to extract them?
–It had to do with the same causes that affected the thermoelectric plants: deterioration, lack of resources, and lack of spare parts. Oil production isn’t just a matter of drilling a well and then it starts to flow. No.
“Drilling a well is an investment, but maintaining that well afterward requires resources, which must be invested every day, and the shortage forced us to keep closing wells, closing them over and over again, because we didn’t have the resources to keep those wells active.
“To give an example, you open a well, you start extracting oil, and that oil in Cuba is dumped into tanks. And once it’s in the tank, you have to extract it from the tank and transport it by road.
“There are very few pipelines in Cuba. For example, from Matanzas to the Santa Cruz thermoelectric plant, it’s by pipeline; from the ports to the refineries, it’s by pipeline; but not all thermoelectric plants or distributed generation are transported by pipeline. A lot of transport has to be done by road.
“So, if your tank fills up and you don’t have the transportation infrastructure to transport the crude oil you pumped out of the wells, you have a bottleneck that also limits your oil production.
“In addition, wells require constant application of chemicals, solvents, and a large amount of inputs daily to keep them active.”
–Plus what the crudeness of our oil conspires to…
–Exactly. That makes things even more complicated with our wells; but we also have to maintain the surface installation, valves, pipes, pumps… all of that requires constant maintenance, repairs that we couldn’t make.
“That limited production, in addition to not being able to invest in new wells and conduct seismic studies. You always have to be ahead of the curve with seismic studies and drilling, and then extract.”
“We managed to drill some wells in 2023, with the goal of obtaining gas; and yes, we obtained gas, and that was what helped recover and increase electricity generation with gas, but crude oil production continued to decline. And in that analysis, we concluded that there would come a time when not even domestic crude oil would be enough for the thermoelectric plants. In fact, if we had all the thermoelectric plants available, there wouldn’t be enough.”
–Wouldn’t our crude oil be enough?
–Not even our own crude oil. And then add to that the distributed generation based on diesel and fuel oil, which are entirely imported; those, or refinable crude oil, because Cuban oil isn’t refined; it’s burned directly in thermoelectric plants.
“It’s not a crude oil that you can take to any of our four refineries and obtain diesel, gasoline, naphtha, liquefied gas, turbofuel for aviation… It’s only useful for thermoelectric plants, which were designed and adapted to that type of fuel.
“Cuban thermoelectric plants, by design, consumed excellent-quality fuel, mostly from the former Soviet Union. Under those conditions, the lifespan between maintenance was much longer. And when the Soviet Union disappeared, we lost all the fuel overnight, which reached 12 million tons.
“So we were forced to begin converting the thermoelectric plants, with a completely Cuban innovation, so they could consume domestic crude oil.
“That saved us, but it came at a great sacrifice. What was it? The lifespan of the thermoelectric generating units was shortened, as was the time between maintenance, because Cuban crude oil has very high sulfur and vanadium contents, which, when combusted in boilers and humid conditions, generate sulfuric acid, which accelerates corrosion.
“This is compounded by the deterioration due to age, due to the years of operation of the thermoelectric plants. Mariel, for example, was inaugurated in 1975, and the youngest is already more than 25 years old. You can maintain anything that requires the required maintenance for 100 years, 200 years, with all the resources it demands; but if a bearing lasts 60,000 hours, and after 60,000 hours you don’t replace it, it’s going to break, and that begins to trigger a progressive deterioration of the system.”
–There’s a number that’s very illustrative of the difference that was spent annually on generation maintenance, and that was drastically reduced with the pandemic.
–I was director of the Electric Union when, as part of the great investment process of the Energy Revolution, there were more than 1 billion, 1.2 billion, 1.3 billion. There were years when the entire electrical system was very close to 2 billion.
“Not just maintenance; it was investments, and also, in parallel or collateral, the entire process of replacing household appliances, light bulbs, refrigerator gaskets, and the introduction of rice cookers and rice cookers; but all of this contributed to electricity, reducing demand and consumption, and reducing fuel use.
“Now, just for generation maintenance, if the electrical system were working properly, we would have to invest between $250 and $350 million every year. If you stop investing those resources in a year, you won’t recover them; and it hasn’t been just a year. That’s the price we’re paying. It hasn’t been possible; the country hasn’t had sufficient income, due to the limitations we know.”
“So, if oil production is declining, if we don’t have the finances to import the millions of tons the economy needs again, the first thing is to slow that decline, while simultaneously reducing fuel consumption and expanding generating capacity.
“That’s when the decision was made to move forward with photovoltaic solar panels, and more than just the panels, to expand plans for the use of renewable energy sources.
“Why are the panels becoming the largest project? First, because the investments are less expensive, because they are completed more quickly, because they can be distributed throughout the country.
“With the initial calculations, we said, ‘We can install 1,000 MW in a year.’ Some colleagues warned that it would be too heavy an investment process in this situation, where there’s no cement, steel, and many other resources. How are we going to ensure the installation of 1,000 MW?
“Let’s analyze it another way. If we do it in 21 MW wind farms and distribute them across 15 provinces, at an average of three per province, then it’s an economic effort that can be made territorially.
“Investors and electricity organizations are present in every territory, as are the structures of the Ministry of Construction; in other words, it’s distributed and that’s it, and that’s what’s happening right now, an open investment process across the country.”
–And what will happen when there is no sun, when there is a hurricane?
–These are two of the reasons why it’s widespread across the country. There may be shade now in the first park we opened, in Cotorro; but in the one in Granma, there’s radiant sunshine.
“The average distance designed between parks is just eight kilometers. There may be shade in one area of one park, but there may not necessarily be the same shade in the other, eight kilometers away.
“It’s a distribution design that also helps regulate voltage, through the National Load Dispatch, and through a system that is also emerging with the installation.
“Of course, the challenges of maintaining an electrical system with a high level of renewable energy penetration will be greater. Something similar happened when distributed generation was introduced. We had large thermoelectric power plants, and in two years, 202 distributed generation sites were installed across the country. That posed a challenge for the operation of the SEN, which included training the human capital to operate it.”
–With these parks generating energy in full sunlight, are there any plans to create capacity to store energy for the night, storing battery power, or will there still be a shortage at night?
–It is also designed to incorporate a level of energy storage, initially to ensure the stability of the electrical system.
“That is, there are concepts of energy storage for stability, and there are concepts of energy storage to deliver to the system. The first storage containers are already in Cuba, but they don’t yet have the battery inside.
“Let’s say there’s the entire container, with all the automation, electronics, and other components. Only at the end is the battery installed. Why was it contracted this way? Because the batteries don’t have to be left uncharged for a certain amount of time, and installing them isn’t the most complex thing either. To put it simply: they’re like drawers that have to be fitted together, and that’s it; but we can get ahead on the rest.”
–This explanation will need to be detailed later; but let’s return to the initial math. When 1,000 MW of panels are available, will there be two-thirds fewer power outages than today, when the peak deficit is 1,500 MW?
–When they say there’s an average deficit of 1,500 MW, that’s at one point in the day. And if we install 1,000 MW, will there still be a 500 MW deficit? Well, no, because of the 1,500 MW, there were days when 1,000 MW were due to fuel.
“That’s why the country has been determined to cover this deficit with renewable energy, because you can’t just start making investments that require more fuel. Although increasing fuel production is also a priority, progress toward reducing fuel consumption is inevitable.
“Let’s take an example. The last time Felton went offline, due to a power outage, there was no service disruption in the early morning hours, nor was there a significant difference compared to the deficit from previous days. How did that happen? Was it due to the weather?”
“No, it wasn’t because of the weather. It’s just that we had fuel that day. We had fuel for all the distributed generations that day, and the deficit was covered. In other words, it’s not just a question of technological generation capacity.
“The deficit would be covered by maintaining this high-tech capacity, purchasing fuel, keeping the distributed generation plants operating, and adding the wind farms.
“The truth is that when we install 1,000 MW of renewable energy, we’ll be saving fuel, which we can use for generation at night.”
How will the system operate ideally, with all these parks synchronized? At least those without storage facilities will only provide electricity during the day? How far are the plans to go with installing batteries that store the charge for when the sun isn’t shining?
This interview will answer these and other questions, and will be available to Granma readers in several parts, with continuation in the next issue.
Photo: Ricardo López Hevia
ON NATIONAL OIL PRODUCTION FOR ELECTRICITY GENERATION
- By the end of 2024, the lack of material resources and financing caused domestic crude oil production to decline by approximately 138,028 tons.
- 40,000 barrels are produced daily, but they only cover a third of consumption.
- Cuban wells only produce 6% of the crude oil found underground. Research is needed to increase that figure to 10% or 11%, which would double production.
- Areas with oil deposits have been identified: Boca de Jaruco, between Fraile and Jibacoa; the area of East Havana and Alamar; and south of the Puerto Escondido and Canasí fields.
- There is an urgent need to encourage prospecting to discover higher-quality crude oil and explore offshore deposits.
- This year, an exploratory campaign is planned that will allow for the incorporation of between three and five wells.
Source: Interview with Osvaldo López Corso, head of the Exploration and Deposit Group of the Cuba-Petroleum Union (Cupet)
