Beyond the Image: Reading Cuba's Energy Crisis from Space-Based SAR

This spring, Cuba experienced one of the most severe energy crises in its history. Aging infrastructure, fuel shortages, and repeated grid failures left millions without reliable power. ICEYE US began collecting over Felton — one of the major thermoelectric plants at the center of the grid collapse — showing what persistent radar observation makes possible.

The facility itself. The plant's structures appear as intense bright returns — metal boilers, turbines, and storage infrastructure reflect radar energy with high intensity. SAR doesn't just confirm a facility exists. At full resolution, analysts can assess structural footprint, identify changes to equipment configuration over time, and draw inferences about operational status.

The surrounding environment. The estuary and river system feeding into Bahía de Cajimaya tell their own story. Variation in backscatter across the bay reveals differences in water depth and tidal flat exposure — relevant for understanding coastal access, flood risk, and environmental change. The mangrove fringe along the shoreline shows characteristic medium-texture radar returns; changes in that texture over time can indicate vegetation stress or land use shifts.

Infrastructure and access. Linear features — roads and rail corridors threading through the wetlands — are identifiable in the imagery. For analysts tracking logistics, supply chain access to a facility like Felton is as important as the facility itself. In SAR Video, vehicle traffic can be seen as movement that reveals density of traffic.

Vessel presence Open water appears dark in SAR due to low backscatter from smooth surfaces — making vessel detection straightforward. Any ship at anchor or underway in the bay would appear as a bright point target against that background. At the time of this collect, no vessel traffic is visible, a data point that tracked persistently speaks to fuel supply chain continuity.

What's shown here is a single collect. The real analytical value comes from persistent, repeated observation — coherent change detection that reveals what has moved, what has changed, and what hasn't. For a grid under stress, that time series is the product.

To learn more about coherent change detection products offered by ICEYE US, please reach out: iceye.us/contact-us.

Felton Thermoelectric Plant, collected on March 28, 2026 at 2:55pm in ICEYE's DWELL FINE mode at 0.5 m resolution, covering a 5 x 5 km swath.