Cuba hit by sixth nationwide blackout of 2026 as grid suffers 'total disconnection' overnight

Cuba was plunged into darkness overnight Sunday to Monday in the sixth nationwide blackout of 2026, after what the state electricity company called a "total disconnection" of the national grid. The outage hit the entire island, including the capital Havana, and comes against a backdrop of a five-year economic crisis, ageing power infrastructure, and a US oil blockade that has choked fuel supplies since January.

What happened

The state-owned utility Unión Eléctrica (UNE) reported on social media that the national electricity system had suffered a complete disconnection, cutting power to the whole country. The Ministry of Energy and Mines said on X that "all protocols for the restoration of the electricity system" had been activated. The blackout began during the night of Sunday 2 August to Monday 3 August.

A pattern of collapse

This is the sixth generalised disconnection of the year, three of which occurred in July and within a span of less than ten days. It is also the eleventh large-scale outage since late 2024. The previous incident struck western Cuba on Saturday evening; power was restored on Sunday before the grid failed again hours later.

Ageing infrastructure and fuel shortages

The Cuban grid rests on seven thermoelectric plants that are more than 40 years old and in varying states of decay. Without fuel reserves, the island cannot run backup generators, which normally operate on imported diesel. The fuel shortage makes the network more vulnerable to faults and slows restoration work by preventing use of those generators.

The US oil blockade

Since January, Washington has imposed an oil blockade on Cuba that complicates fuel deliveries to power plants and backup generators. Over that period, the US has authorised the arrival of only one Russian tanker, which carried 100,000 tonnes of crude oil in March. Havana blames Washington for the energy crisis; the United States attributes it to economic mismanagement.

Daily life in the dark

In recent weeks, blackouts have exceeded 30 consecutive hours in Havana, while in the interior of the country they can stretch for several days. The repeated disruptions are wearing down the population of 9.4 million. The outage that began overnight Sunday is the latest in a series that has seen the grid collapse eleven times at scale since the end of 2024.