Cuba is struggling with devastating nationwide blackouts as the United States’ effective oil blockade strangles fuel supplies. But this crisis may also be accelerating a China-backed clean energy revolution that’s been quietly unfolding in the Caribbean nation.
Cuba is currently pulling off one of the fastest solar revolutions on the planet, with help from China, according to data from the energy think tank Ember. Imports of Chinese solar panels and batteries have soared over the past year and, with Chinese investment, Cuba has built dozens of solar parks.
The country is still heavily dependent on fossil fuels, but some experts believe the intense US pressure — with threats to take “control” of the island — may hasten Cuba’s path toward clean energy. More renewables mean less dependence on fuel imports, helping “remove this lever of coercion,” said Kevin Cashman, an economist with the Transition Security Project, a US-UK research organization.
Others caution that Cuba’s energy situation is so bleak, its grid so broken and its economic situation so dire, that renewables can only be a small part of the puzzle right now. In the meantime, lengthy and disruptive blackouts continue and most ordinary Cubans have yet to feel the benefit of the solar surge.
A clean energy revolution “sounds nice on paper, but you’ve got to have the resources,” said Ricardo Torres, a Cuban economist at the American University in Washington DC.
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