HAVANA, Cuba (AFP) — It’s the middle of the night in Havana, but Alejandro Benitez is just getting down to work.

The power is back on for the first time in 15 hours and Benitez, a fourth-year architecture student, needs to get his assignment in fast before the electricity cuts out again.

Desperate times call for desperate measures in crisis-hit Cuba, where a United States US fuel blockade — part of a pressure campaign which Havana fears will culminate in a military intervention — has aggravated an energy crisis, leaving people without power for up to 20 hours a day.