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China donates 70 tons of equipment to Cuba to restore its electric system
The People’s Republic of China has donated almost 70 tons of power generator parts and accessories to Cuba, aiming to contribute to the recovery of the Caribbean island’s electricity system.
The materials arrived in the country on Sunday (29) and were received by China’s ambassador to Cuba, Hua Xin, and Cuba’s deputy ministers of Foreign Trade and Investment, Déborah Rivas, and Energy and Mining, Tatiana Amarán.
According to Ambassador Xin, the shipment is part of China’s second assistance package in 2024 to help restore Cuba’s electricity generation capacity to around 400 megawatts (MW). As part of an “emergency project list,” the donations were included to provide Cuba with effective and rapid aid according to what the Chinese government calls “convenience for the most urgent.”
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The donations come as the Caribbean country is facing a serious energy crisis that has worsened in recent months. This year, Cuba has suffered three total blackouts in the national electricity system, leaving the country completely in the dark. Currently, power cuts are becoming more and more constant, affecting over 40% of the population daily. The situation has seriously damaged economic activity and the population’s quality of life.
Even with this and the photovoltaic donations, it feels like China is very squeamish about helping Cuba that much. Quite disappointing. Perhaps as the US keeps driving forward on sanctions on China, they'll increasingly not care about potential consequences, but until then, Cuba suffers.
- The situation with regards to Cuba's energy infrastructure is bad and can't be fixed quickly. To supply full demand, they basically need all of their remaining oil burning thermal power plants (TPPs) and micro generation power plants to be running at full capacity. Any maintenance or fuel shortage puts them in a deficit. I did another reply in here breaking down all the numbers, but the summary is current demand is 2.8GW, and current supply 2.2GW. So a 600MW shortfall. And Cuba themselves state that the limitations on the TPPs is only 319MW, which is less than the 400MW China is aiming to reinstate. So even if all of the serviceable TPPs are put back in service, that's still a 300MW shortfall. Cuba has been making up that shortfall using micro generation facilities, but apparently they are now running low on fuel, and that 300MW is not available.
  Long term, you'd have to either rebuild the Cuban grid on renewables (which is the government's plan), or get the Soviet era TPPs back in service. While that second opinion would add a lot to the grid as these could supply GWs of power (Cuba theoretically has over 7GW of generation capacity installed, more than double current demand), it essentially involves rebuilding these oil burning TPPs instead of just maintenance, and would take long. What China appears to be doing is supplying equipment to fix the TPP shortfall of 319MW, and some fuel for the micro generation facilities.

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China donates 70 tons of equipment to Cuba to restore its electric system