The plant has not had a major overhaul in over 36 years; its Soviet-era boiler system repeatedly fails under fuel-supply pressure and deferred maintenance, causing at least seven shutdowns in 2026.Source: CiberCuba

When did the Guiteras plant shut down in May 2026?

It shut down at 09:12 on Tuesday 5 May 2026, with UNE forecasting roughly 1,680 MW of unserved load that evening — the seventh shutdown of the year.Source: CiberCuba

How much of Cuba's electricity does the Guiteras plant provide?

At nameplate capacity of approximately 315 MW, Guiteras accounts for roughly one-tenth of Cuba's maximum load of about 3,250 MW; its absence directly drives load-shedding schedules across the island.

Background

The Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant in Matanzas province is Cuba's single largest generating unit, with a nameplate capacity of approximately 315 MW. Built in the 1980s with Soviet-era engineering assistance and named after Cuban revolutionary Antonio Guiteras Holmes, the plant has not received a comprehensive overhaul in more than 36 years; its boiler system is the primary failure point. When online it accounts for roughly one-tenth of Cuba's total generating capacity.

The plant shut down at 09:12 on 5 May 2026 after a boiler failure, its seventh shutdown of the year, prompting UNE to forecast roughly 1,680 MW of unserved demand at the evening peak against 3,250 MW of maximum load. It failed again at 04:58 on 14 May, its ninth outage of 2026; plant director Román Pérez Castañeda said 180 days of comprehensive maintenance were needed but Cuba's fuel situation prevents the shutdown. Guiteras's repeated outages track directly with fuel supply shocks, since the plant needs heavy fuel oil that has depended on Russian tanker deliveries since Venezuelan crude was blocked by the US Treasury's 18 March carve-out.

Unit 1 was among the plants out of service when Cuba's National Grid collapsed completely on 6 July 2026 after the separate failure of Unit 6 at the Nuevitas plant in Camagüey, the fourth total SEN collapse of the year. The three-day staged restoration that followed Left a post-restoration deficit above 2,000 MW, with parts of Matanzas, the plant's own home province, dark for up to 87 hours. Guiteras's chronic boiler failures through 2026 have made it the anchor of Cuba's grid-failure narrative, tracking the island's fuel-supply crisis shutdown by shutdown.