Cuba's National Electric System (SEN) suffered a total disconnection on Monday, March 16, 2026, the sixth nationwide blackout in the last 18 months. The state-run Electric Company (UNE) reported the outage and activated emergency protocols to restore service.
A new total disconnection of Cuba's National Electric System (SEN) occurred on March 16, 2026, leaving the entire country without electricity, as reported by the state-run Electric Company (UNE) on its social media. The entity stated that “the causes are under investigation” and “emergency protocols” have been activated to restore the SEN. Authorities warned that normalizing the power supply could take numerous hours due to the condition of the infrastructure and the scale of the breakdowns. Currently, nine of the 16 thermoelectric units making up the national system are out of service, representing around 40% of the country's electricity generation and reducing the system's capacity to meet domestic demand. This marks the sixth total failure of the SEN in just over a year. Prior incidents happened on October 18, 2024; November 6, 2024, associated with Hurricane Rafael; December 4, 2024; March 14, 2025; and September 10, 2025, when an unexpected shutdown at the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant caused the system to disconnect.
