Cuba is in the grip of its worst energy crisis in decades. Blackouts have at times stretched beyond 20 hours a day as the island's aging, oil-fired power plants run short of fuel — and in response, the government has turned, fast, to the sun.
A grid running on empty
Cuba's thermal plants are old and poorly maintained, and the fuel to run them has become scarce. The United States has tightened sanctions on the island and moved to squeeze its oil supplies, while shipments from allies including Venezuela have dwindled. Washington says its pressure is aimed at the Cuban government; Cuba and some international bodies say the measures fall hardest on ordinary people, leaving homes without refrigeration, water pumps idle and hospitals rationing power. The result has been repeated grid failures and daily, rolling outages across the country.
One of the world's fastest solar pushes
Against that backdrop, Cuba has been installing solar parks at a remarkable pace — "one of the fastest solar revolutions on the planet," in the words of CNN, built largely with Chinese help. Under an agreement with Beijing, Cuba aims to open 92 solar parks by 2028, for roughly two gigawatts of capacity — enough, officials say, to power more than 1.5 million homes. Chinese solar-panel exports to Cuba leapt from about $3 million in 2023 to $117 million in 2025, CNN reported, and by early 2026 dozens of new parks had been connected to the grid. In February 2026 the country generated more than 900 megawatts from solar for the first time, a record, NBC News reported.
Sunshine can't light the night
The catch is fundamental: solar power peaks at midday, but Cuba's worst shortfalls come in the evening, when demand rises and the panels stop producing. Without large-scale battery storage — which Cuba largely lacks and cannot easily afford or import under sanctions — the new solar capacity eases daytime pressure on the thermal plants but does little for the nighttime peak when blackouts bite hardest. Cuba has announced plans for some battery systems, but they are modest relative to the size of the gap.
A geopolitical as well as an energy story
The build-out has also deepened China's footprint in a country 90 miles from the United States, at a time of broader competition for influence. For Cubans, the immediate reality is more practical than geopolitical: more hours of daytime electricity in some areas, charcoal and bicycles filling the gaps, and uncertainty about the evenings. Solar is buying Cuba time and relief during daylight — but on current plans, without batteries, more fuel, or an easing of the sanctions standoff, it cannot by itself restore the round-the-clock power the island had before the crisis began.
