Summer, Heat, and Power Outages in Iran; Government Asks Citizens to 'Conserve' Without Explanation

While the Islamic Republic has spent a significant portion of the country's resources over the past 20 years on its nuclear program under the pretext of 'electricity production' and 'completing the Bushehr power plant', the people are facing the recurring problem of widespread power outages as summer and rising temperatures hit Iran. Ata Hosseinian, an energy journalist, told Voice of America: 'The Bushehr nuclear power plant, which cost billions of dollars to build and has faced many sanctions, only has the capacity to produce 1,000 megawatts of electricity, while the country's electricity consumption in recent days has been around 77,000 megawatts.' In response to the question of why the Islamic Republic officials continue to pursue nuclear energy development despite all the sanctions and costs imposed on the people, he added: 'Despite the Islamic Republic's propaganda in recent years and the vast amounts of money spent, the Bushehr nuclear power plant can only supply one percent of the country's electricity needs, which could be provided at much lower costs through clean energy sources.' Meanwhile, Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, the CEO of Tavanir, rejected any claims of 'scheduled power outages' on Friday, July 22, stating: 'We have no plans to publish power outage schedules, and if the people cooperate, we will get through this summer without outages.' This comes as domestic media reported widespread power outages in 13 provinces on Thursday and over five hours of outages in some areas of Tehran on Friday. Experts believe that the lack of a plan and behavior outside economic frameworks in developmental issues is the main cause of the energy imbalance, arguing that with this style of governance, there is little hope for improvement. Previously, the newspaper 'Donya-e-Eqtesad' noted that the mismatch between revenues and expenses has led to a lack of interest from investors in the electricity industry, who prefer to invest in other industries, while the government, which pays heavy subsidies to household and agricultural consumers, is unable to build power plants or even pay the claims of power plant owners, contractors, and equipment manufacturers in the electricity industry.