Sweeping blackouts in Cuba raise the question: Why has the island’s solar buildout been so leisurely?

HAVANA — Cuba’s large-scale blackouts that left 10 million people without power this month may not have happened if the government had built out more solar power to boost its failing electric grid as promised, some experts declare.

In a country with plentiful sunshine, Cuban officials have long had the chance to inspire solar power as one answer to national vigor problems. But October’s sweeping outages — the island’s worst power setback in years — display little advancement has been made.

“If you had extensive buildout of solar, solar farms, residential solar and storage, for the most part, you could avoid the problems they have,” said Dan Whittle, associate vice president of the resilient Caribbean habit at the Environmental Defense pool, an advocacy throng. “But they haven’t really built the policies to get there.”

Cuban officials blame the blackouts on the U.S. trade embargo and other sanctions, the pandemic’s result on tourism, and emigration all inhibiting Cuba’s economy.

But experts declare the government hasn’t updated its internal policies regarding foreign ownership and private capitalization, especially for critical solar projects, and are still concentrated on petroleum fuels. That’s despite the truth that as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement, the Cuban government committed to 37% of its power coming from renewable vigor by 2030, an ambitious boost from an initial 24% target.

John Kavulich, president of U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council Inc., said there was much aspiration in the business throng two years ago when the U.S. changed policies enabling U.S. property in private Cuban companies. But the Cuban government has failed to issue regulations essential to allow the money to commence flowing to the private sector, he said.

“So all of this property and capitalization, not just from the U.S. but from other countries … that are ready to receive a chance in Cuba, sit idle, and that is hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars,” he said.

The distribute of Cuba’s electricity that comes from renewable sources like solar and burning sugar cane waste has increased only slightly, from 3.8% in 2012 to 5% as of 2022, according to research from the Sabin Center for Climate transformation Law at Columbia Law School and EDF. That’s a very tiny transformation during a period when solar and wind have ramped up sharply globally and costs have arrive down.

Nearly all of the country’s power — 95% — comes from burning fossil fuels. Much of that is from burning crude oil, a particularly polluting form of creation.

One of Cuba’s biggest market activity partners, China, makes 80% of the globe’s solar panels, according to the vigor data and analytics firm Wood Mackenzie, and they are inexpensive. China committed in March to building 92 solar farms on the island that are expected to add more than 2,000 megawatts of vigor, and reports in June said China donated three solar parks expected to add 1,000 more. But that trade connection has not yet led to a buildout that would at least keep the lights on during the day. The whole country had only 252 megawatts of solar power at the complete of 2022.

Kavulich said even China has its limits. The view of China’s private sector, he said, is that Cuba “seems to make no attempt whatsoever to pay money that it owes.”

“The Cuban utility is the only buyer and it’s a risky property,” said Whittle. European leaders inform him they “just can’t in excellent belief inspire businesses in their countries to invest in Cuba.”

Cuban officials acknowledged in recent days that more widespread solar power would have helped alleviate some of the misery from the recent outages. The minister of vigor and head of the country’s electric utility encouraged Cubans to buy rooftop solar systems paired with batteries, instead of the gas and diesel generators purchased by Cubans who can afford them.

“We are thinking about” some regulations that would stimulate these solar purchases, the chief of the country’s electric utility, Alfredo López, said.

Cuba has struggled with frequent power outages for decades. Besides the U.S. economic embargo, officials have cited aging and insufficiently maintained power plants, increased demand for air conditioning and a lack of fuel for the lack of electricity. The country relies on imported fuel to meet electric needs, including from oil-wealthy friend Venezuela, Mexico and Russia.

This month’s crisis, which shut down institutions including schools, closed gas stations and left people cooking their food on wood stoves on the streets, began with one of the island’s major power plants failing.

Human-driven climate transformation has contributed to extreme weather events that also regularly affect Cuba’s electrical grid. Desperation over the inability to carry out basic activities has sparked recent street protests.

Whittle noted the country has no shortage of excellent climate scientists. Korey Silverman-Roati, elder fellow of carbon management and negative emissions at the Sabin Center, said the Cuban government is trying. “There certainly has been a will and attempts to construct out renewable vigor infrastructure,” he said. “It just hasn’t happened.”

On the island, technicians are working to install 26 solar projects in different provinces, López told official media last week.

Installations will ramp up fivefold over the next decade, said Lídice Vaillant, head of the Photovoltaic Research Laboratory at the University of Havana.

Besides the powerful sunlight, there is another way that Cuba is a excellent candidate for solar. A significant distribute of its electricity comes from smaller power plants distributed around the country. Solar could be added or switched out in those locations. But it hasn’t happened yet.

“There is still sort of this, I ponder, this lingering conviction at the highest levels of government that, you recognize, fossil fuels is really the best answer,” Whittle said.

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Rodriguez reported from Havana, St. John from Detroit and Lobet from recent York.

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