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Facing a months-long U.S. blockade, Cuba announced Wednesday that the country had run out of diesel and fuel oil. Its unsteady power grid is running on domestically produced crude oil, natural gas, and a growing supply of renewable electricity.
Analysts say that recurrent blackouts have spurred a surge in solar imports from China. “Given the already precarious circumstances of the electric grid, many Cubans have figured out ways to import solar panels,” Michael Bustamante, chair of Cuban studies at the University of Miami, told Bloomberg. The Cuban government is also working with China to build more than 50 solar parks this year.
The pivot toward solar took off in 2024, when nationwide blackouts spurred a push for renewable energy. Last year Cuba imported $117 million of solar panels from China, up from just $3 million in 2023, according to data from Ember.
Ember analyst Dave Jones recently told The Washington Post that solar may now provide as much as 10 percent of Cuba’s power, up from close to nothing a year ago. “Cuba,” he said, “is perhaps in the middle of one of the most rapid solar revolutions.”
Globally, analysts say, energy shortages rippling from the Iran War have prompted a spike in solar exports from China, which doubled in March to reach a new high. “Fossil shocks are boosting the solar surge,” said Ember analyst Euan Graham. “Countries are importing solar panels at record levels.”
This week the Energy Transitions Commission, a group of corporate leaders and senior bankers, said the ongoing energy crisis highlights “a structural vulnerability in the global energy system: heavy reliance on geographically concentrated fossil fuel supply and critical transit routes.” By contrast, the group said, “clean energy systems are structurally immune to this type of shock.”
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