Cuba Expands Solar Capacity as Nationwide Blackouts Persist Amid Oil Import Collapse

Cuba experienced three nationwide blackouts in March during its worst energy crisis in decades, cutting electricity for roughly 10 million residents as the impacts of severed oil imports took hold. The crisis reached new levels in 2024 with multiday nationwide blackouts, a turning point that prompted the government to promote solar power as a solution.

China exported around $3 million of solar panels to Cuba in 2023.

That figure rose to $117 million in 2025, according to data from Ember cited by Cnn reported. Solar power started to take off in Cuba in 2024, with the country now operating around 50 solar parks. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel opened the first solar park in February 2025.

Cuba has an agreement with China to open 92 solar parks by 2028. 5 million homes. Renewable energy makes up roughly 10 percent of Cuba’s electricity, up from around 3 percent in 2024, Cnn reported.

The Cuban government has pledged that renewable energy will rise to at least 24 percent by 2030. Oil is the backbone of Cuba’s electricity system and most oil for Cuba’s electricity system is imported. In the 1980s, Cuba’s oil mainly came from the Soviet Union.

After the Soviet Union fell in the 1990s, Cuba switched to Venezuelan oil in exchange for sending medical professionals. In early January, after the Trump administration captured Venezuela’s president, the oil supply to Cuba was cut off. Imports to Cuba from other oil suppliers including Mexico dried up after the US threatened them with additional tariffs.

The blackouts that followed left trash piled in streets, limited hospital surgeries and forced people to burn wood to cook. An April analysis by Kevin Cashman concluded that generating 93 percent renewables would break the main external lever of US coercion and 100 percent would complete the electricity transition.

It would cost $8 billion for Cuba to generate around 93 percent of its electricity from renewables.

““They have solved many problems for many people.””

“— Yudelaimys Barrero Muñoz Cuba’s first solar-powered charging station is in the city of Santa Clara. At the solar-powered charging station in Santa Clara, Cubans can charge cellphones, power banks, and electric motorbikes. Yudelaimys Barrero Muñoz uses the station to charge her family’s electric three-wheeler. Ricardo Torres, a Cuban economist, told Cnn reported that a clean energy revolution “sounds nice on paper, but you’ve got to have the resources.” Experts note that Cuba’s solar parks remain small and scattered, solar generation occurs only during daylight, and the country lacks utility-scale battery storage to meet evening peak demand. Cnn reported that while some Cubans benefit from the solar surge, most ordinary residents have yet to see improvements in daily electricity supply. Torres added that what Cubans need most is guaranteed power regardless of its source, as many still struggle to afford basic needs such as food.”