The Chinese government on March 14 2025 delivered its first batch of donations for the construction of photovoltaic parks in Cuba.
Under an agreement reached between China and Cuba in December 2024, seven 5MW photovoltaic parks will be built across six provinces in Cuba. This is part of Cuba’s broader efforts, as part of a Chinese-backed plan, to ease hours-long blackouts across the Caribbean island nation. Under the plan 92 solar parks will be installed by 2028. Cuba faces an energy crisis caused by long term US economic sanctions.
On February 22, 2025, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel inaugurated the first of the 92 solar parks
The park in Havana was one of 55 expected to come online this year, generating 1,200 megawatts, with the remainder opening by 2028.
The first batch of donations from China arrived in Artemisa, about 50 kilometers west of the capital Havana, for the implementation of a photovoltaic park project.
Cuba’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment Deborah Rivas said that the project involves seven parks and will contribute 35 megawatts (MW) to the island’s electrical system upon completion.
During the delivery ceremony in the municipality of Guanajay, just meters from where one of the seven parks will be built, Rivas assured that energy cooperation between Cuba and China is a priority. The official explained that the remaining parks will be located in the provinces of Pinar del Rio, Las Tunas, Holguin, Granma, and Guantanamo.
She also thanked the Chinese government, particularly the International Development Cooperation Agency, for its contribution, which “will gradually reduce the annoying power outages” that the Cuban population suffers from. This first batch includes materials for the construction of the parks, with the rest of the resources expected to arrive during the first half of this year.
The Chinese ambassador to Cuba, Hua Xin, said that this moment “marks another solid step” in the cooperation between the two countries in the field of new energy. The Cuban government is accelerating its efforts to change the energy matrix to produce electricity from renewable sources and reduce the Caribbean island’s dependence on the import of fossil fuels.
Millions of people in Cuba were left without electricity on Saturday following a failure in the national power grid the night before. The widespread blackout marks the fourth in the past six months, as the country struggles with a deepening economic crisis. According to a statement from the Ministry of Energy and Mines on social media, the outage was caused by a malfunction at a substation on the outskirts of Havana.
Source: Newsflare, Mar 17, 2025. https://www.newsflare.com/…/cuba-china-delivers-1st…
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