February 28, 2020
For the first time ever, Tehran is being subjected to rolling blackouts in the winter, but the reason for the power shortage remains unclear.
Numerous cities across Iran awoke February 17 to find that districts were having the electricity shut off for two-hour periods. Sections of the city would be blacked out faor two hours and then see the power restored while other sections suffered a two-hour blackout.
There was no advance announcement of the power cut-offs. It isn’t known how many cities besides the capital are impacted.
A spokesman for the electrical authority, Mostafa Rajabi-Mashhadi, said the country was short of natural gas with which to run its power generating plants.
Such rolling blackouts used to be the norm in Iran during the summer months when demand is high because of air conditioning. But winter blackouts are unheard of—or were until now.
The Financial Tribune quoted Payam Baqeri of the Electrical Industry Syndicate as saying Iran was short of power because it was exporting so much, especially to Iraq, and could not cut off the supply to Iraq because of a binding contractual agreement.
However, the Mehr news agency quoted Baqeri as saying the electricity sales deal with Iraq had been suspended. But he didn’t say it was suspended because Iran needed the power. He said it was suspended because of “cabinet reshuffles in Iraq.” He added, according to Mehr, “We are waiting for the political situation in Iraq to stabilize.”
But the Financial Tribune quoted Baqeri as saying, “Power is exported based on international norms and contracts that cannot be changed, suspended or revoked as per our wish or whim.”
Iran, however, has frequently cut off electricity exports to Iraq and natural gas exports to Turkey in previous years when Iranian demand soared, under a policy of satisfying Iranian customers first regardless of its contracts with other countries.
Power exports to Iraq were halted last summer, for example, to prevent blackouts in Iran. The result was major protests in southern Iraq against both the Iraqi government and the Islamic Republic.
Energy Ministry spokesman Rajabi-Mashhadi told the Financial Tribune, “The National Iranian Gas Company is not delivering enough feedstock [natural gas] to power stations. As a result, electricity generation has declined and power outages have started.”
It had previously been reported that this winter being especially cold, natural gas had been diverted from power plants to provide residences with piped gas for heating. To replace the natural gas, power plants were receiving mazut to run their generators. Mazut is an especially dirty fuel that causes large volumes of pollutants.