To Dad, an Embrace with the Energy of the Sun

This Sunday, the Sun greets from a distance to join the celebration of Father’s Day, gifting those of us in the northern hemisphere the day with the most hours of sunlight — a symbol of energy and warm colors.

The Sun, in its apparent movement around the Earth, reaches its highest point above the horizon, giving rise to the astronomical phenomenon known as the summer solstice.

From the Latin «solstitium,» meaning «still Sun,» exactly at noon, the king star will be overhead, causing us to cast the shortest shadow of the year.

Under these conditions, those of us living in the northern hemisphere of the Blue Planet, on this June 21, besides sending congratulations to Dad, bid farewell to spring and welcome summer.

Intense solar radiation and high temperatures — an ideal environment for greater use of natural light, reducing electricity consumption and thus greenhouse gas emissions, a phenomenon intensified by the excessive burning of fossil fuels.

In Cuba, for example, which is not among the largest consumers of oil and its derivatives, the electroenergetic system is designed to produce more than 95 percent of the energy required for socio-productive activity through hydrocarbon combustion, and diesel is essential to meet peak-hour demand.

Something that in recent times has become impossible for the simple reason of having a neighbor who decided to cut off all possibility of acquiring not only parts and pieces for Cuban thermoelectric plants but also the fuel the country demands.

Energy Without Amendments

In the Cuban archipelago, solar radiation is so abundant that, on average, about five kilowatt-hours per square meter reach the country’s surface. Hence the push for the creation of photovoltaic parks and the installation of solar panels in state entities, the private sector, and households to harness energy that the Sun gives us without amendments.

A government program that faces obstacles such as high market prices for this technology and limitations in battery storage systems, since beyond storage, they contribute to the stabilization of electrical frequency.

Step by Step

Until 2012, photovoltaic installations on the Antillean Island totaled about three MEGAWATTS (MW) in low-power systems, not connected to the grid, located in schools, medical offices, homes, cultural centers, and other isolated facilities where the national electrical grid does not reach.

In 2013, a significant leap occurred with the assembly of grid-connected solar parks. The first in Matanzas were Cárdenas I and Cárdenas III, with an installed capacity of 5.95 MW. And executions continued.

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger

As a result of the energy blockade that, in January 2026, the Trump administration added to the criminal economic, commercial, and financial siege imposed by the U.S. on Cuba for over six decades, obtaining electricity from hydrocarbon combustion is showing red numbers.

It was then time to accelerate the transition program toward renewable energies, specifically solar, with the creation of new photovoltaic parks and thus increase the more than 1,000 MW in solar energy with which Cuba closed 2025.

Work has also been done to create facilities for the purchase of small modules by state sector workers, mainly in Public Health and Education; for the installation of this technology in homes of people with health vulnerabilities, in maternity homes, nursing homes, polyclinics, and other healthcare units.

Also in radio, television, telephone centers, banks, funeral homes, and water pumping and distribution sites to guarantee essential services to the population.

An entire structure to which the private sector and residential sector have been incorporated.

And as the Minister of Science, Technology, and Environment, Armando Rodríguez Batista, said, «Cuba has stopped seeing renewables as an environmental gesture to consider them a national rescue operation.»

In that willingness to accelerate the energy transition, import benefits have been implemented for individuals and legal entities that bring into the country raw materials, components, parts, pieces, and accessories intended for the manufacture or installation of renewable systems.

Thus, the large doses of energy, free of cost, that this yellow star — which on June 21 is at the highest point above the horizon — delivers to us daily, translate into environmental and economic value, sovereignty for the Cuban people, and reasons to celebrate with Dad.