Cuba says solar expansion is advancing as fuel shortages and blackouts persist

Cuba is pressing ahead with solar power and other domestic energy sources amid fuel shortages and prolonged blackouts, Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy said in an interview reported on 12 October. He said 144 solar farms had been installed, but did not establish how much electricity all of that capacity is currently delivering to the country’s strained grid.

De la O Levy described a search for energy from the sun, wind and tides, alongside domestic fuel, Cuban crude and gas from the country’s wells. He put the combined capacity of the installed solar farms at about 1,418 megawatts. The figure is a statement of installed capacity, not a measure of power available at any given hour or proof that blackouts have eased.

How Cuba’s solar figures compare

A Cuba Study Group report published in March recorded 34 new solar parks, totalling 744 megawatts, as active by December 2025. It put operational solar capacity then at close to 1,043 megawatts. The report also noted a discrepancy in park counts: Cuba’s prime minister had said 41 parks were completed, while daily utility bulletins in early 2026 reported 34. Completion, operation and the date of a count can produce different totals.

The minister’s later figure of about 1,418 megawatts is therefore not directly comparable with the study group’s December 2025 operational total. The available reporting does not reconcile the two measures or show what share of the newly reported capacity is operating. Al Jazeera reported that China was Cuba’s largest supplier of solar panels and that shipments had increased since US measures began in early January.

Why installed capacity has not ended blackouts

The country entered this expansion with a weakened power system. The Cuba Study Group estimated that Cuba generated 15,918 gigawatt-hours of electricity in 2025, 25 percent below its 2019 peak. It said available thermal capacity fell from 2,548 megawatts in 2022 to 1,993 megawatts in 2024, while available distributed-generation capacity declined from 2,265 to 1,920 megawatts over the same period.

The study group said thermal plants operated at about 70 percent of capacity in 2024 and 2025, and transmission and distribution losses exceeded 16 percent of generation. Its report attributed the crisis to a combination of infrastructure and investment problems and the effects of US sanctions. Adding solar panels alone does not address every source of lost or unavailable electricity identified in that assessment.

The Cuba Study Group put renewables at 3.6 percent of total electricity generation in 2024. Al Jazeera reported that renewables covered 9 percent of Cuba’s total energy consumption in 2023. Those figures describe different measures in different years; neither gives a current share of electricity supplied by renewables.

De la O Levy said Cubans continued to face long blackouts and shortages of fuel for cooking and transportation. He described progress as gradual and said domestic crude production remained stable, with almost all of it allocated to power plants. Al Jazeera, citing the International Energy Agency, reported that domestic oil production supplies 40 percent of Cuba’s electricity.

What is known about fuel restrictions

Al Jazeera reported that US President Donald Trump halted Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba in early January and later that month threatened tariffs on countries exporting oil to the island. It reported that only one Russian oil tanker had reached Cuba since those measures began. The account did not supply the underlying orders or a shipment dataset, leaving the precise scope and enforcement of the restrictions unverified in the available material.

The minister estimated that US oil entering Cuba for private firms covered less than 3 percent of national fuel needs. Al Jazeera reported increased US oil shipments to private businesses while exports for nationalised industries were largely barred. The minister’s percentage is his estimate; the report did not independently quantify the volume against Cuba’s total needs.

A separate dispute concerns 90 biodiesel shipments valued above $2.8 million that US authorities said they seized on 7 October. Al Jazeera attributed to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement an allegation that the shipments were an unlawful attempt to export fuel to Cuba. De la O Levy denied that the Cuban government was linked to them. The underlying US statement was not available for verification here, and the competing accounts remain unresolved.

The constraints on further solar growth

Cuba’s government has already set a requirement for large state and private consumers to cover half their daytime demand with renewable energy within three years under a decree issued in late 2024, according to the Cuba Study Group. The report said penalties apply for non-compliance. That policy places part of the transition on major electricity users as well as new generating projects.

The study group identified financing, spare parts, maintenance, grid investment and storage as constraints on turning renewable projects into dependable supply. Those limits matter alongside the minister’s new capacity figure: the available evidence establishes a push to install solar and documents severe strain on the existing system, but does not establish when the added capacity will provide reliable electricity through Cuba’s blackouts.