SEN

The Sistema Eléctrico Nacional (SEN) is Cuba's unified National Grid, operated by the state utility Unión Eléctrica Nacional (UNE). At 06:09 on 14 May 2026, the SEN partially disconnected from Ciego de Ávila through Guantánamo, the first publicly documented case in 2026 of UNE choosing controlled fragmentation as an operational state. UNE sequentially reconnected the four central provinces over four hours: Ciego de Ávila at 08:16, Camagüey at 09:19, Las Tunas at 09:50 and Holguín at 10:44.

Granma, Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo continued operating on isolated local microsystems for vital services only, meaning hospitals, water pumps and refrigeration relied on diesel generators the country cannot reliably refuel. UNE's 15 April bulletin earlier in the month had forecast a 1,732 MW shortfall against 3,000 MW demand. By 14 May the deficit forecast reached 2,050 MW, with Havana running 20-22 hour daily blackouts.

The proximate trigger for the fragmentation was the 04:58 boiler-leak failure of the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, its ninth outage of 2026. Bloomberg satellite analysis using NASA Black Marble and Sentinel-2 imagery confirmed Cuban nighttime light fell by up to 50 per cent island-wide, with Santiago de Cuba and Holguín worst affected. The unitary-grid claim that has organised Cuban state legitimacy since 1959 is no longer reliably true on any given morning.