Iran has ordered public offices closed across half the country until Sunday to ease energy demand driven by intense heat.
Banks and other government offices in Tehran and at least 19 other provinces will be closed on Saturday – the start of the week in Iran – and through a public holiday on Sunday, according to state media reports.
The Tehran Electricity Distribution Company also said power would be cut to 100 high-consumption government offices. Provinces, including Kerman and North Khorasan, declared they would shut down on the same day.
The move comes as officials warn that scorching heat is straining the country’s power grid, particularly hydroelectric plants, which account for around 15 per cent of Iran’s electricity generation.
Shutting down state institutions has become an increasingly frequent measure to ease energy shortages – even outside extreme weather events – adding to nationwide daily power cuts for households and industries, and public appeals urging citizens to reduce electricity use.
A lasting drought has ‘forced offline a significant portion’ of Iran’s hydroelectric power, leaving some plants ‘practically unable to produce electricity due to depleted water reserves’, director of Iran’s power grid operations Maziar Jamshidi told the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.
Among the affected facilities are the Karun 3 and 4 plants in southwestern Iran, with a combined capacity of 3,000 megawatts, Jamshidi said.
Iranian media reported that the shortages are crippling industrial production and disrupting communications and Internet services.
“Units operating three shifts have lost nearly half their shifts entirely,” Iran’s trade chamber chief Arman Khaleghi told ISNA. “Overall, industries have lost 30pc to 60pc of their production capacity solely due to power shortages.”
Khaleghi urged officials to adopt policies of engagement to ease sanctions pressure.
“The country must either engage with the world and leverage regional and international opportunities, or continue oscillating between selling resources to neighbours and importing from them.
“This path is neither sustainable nor befitting Iran’s economy,” he said.
Dozens of citizens have reported Internet disruptions, outages and slowdowns in recent weeks, compounding the strain from inflation, unemployment, and shortages of power and water.
“We should expect that in the near future, just as we have daily power outages, we’ll also face three-hour daily Internet outages,” warned Alireza Rafiei, head of mobile operator Irancell.
He said electricity shortages have rendered backup batteries ineffective, leading to frequent service breakdowns.
“Batteries aren’t a viable solution for recurring power cuts, and with such frequent outages, we often can’t recharge them. Two hours of daily outages equate to 2pc of sites being offline 24/7, causing significant dissatisfaction,” Rafiei added.
Sanctions, corruption, and economic mismanagement have deepened the crisis, with Iran’s rial losing more than 90pc of its value since US sanctions were reimposed in 2018.
Temperatures in the southern Iranian provinces of Bushehr and Khuzestan surpassed 50C earlier this month, with Tehran seeing highs of around 40C, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
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