TEHRAN – Iran’s First Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri on Saturday announced the cabinet’s new resolution for organizing systematic power outages for domestic and commercial subscribers and to prevent blackouts in the country, IRNA reported.

As reported, in a meeting on July 7, the cabinet made some decisions based on the Energy Ministry proposals for reducing the duration of systematic power outages in urban areas and for managing the country’s current electricity situation, the result of which was announced in the form of the mentioned resolution.

Accordingly, all government organizations, banks, and other public institutions will be closed on Thursdays in Tehran and throughout the country until the end of the Iranian calendar month of Mordad (August 22) in accordance with Article (87) of the Civil Service Management Law.

Also, to maintain the stability of the country’s electricity network, the instructions provided by the National Dispatching Center (Iran Electricity Network Management Company) should be followed by all power distribution departments across the country and also by large-scale subscribers.

Furthermore, in order to reduce the country’s electricity consumption by 4,000 megawatts, all industries are obliged to reduce their consumption by at least 10 percent by overhauling their equipment or closing for summer vacations within two weeks. In case of non-compliance, the electricity companies are allowed to cut off the subscribers’ electricity immediately.

A working group comprised of the ministries of Energy, Industry, Mining and Trade, Finance, and Economic Affairs will also be formed to allocate incentives such as tax deferral, and long-term tax installments to units complying with this resolution.

The cabinet has also allowed the Energy Ministry to prioritize, limit, or, if necessary, cut off the electricity of the high-consuming subscribers in order to balance the supply and demand of electricity in the country (until the end of the summer peak consumption period).

Over the past decade, constant temperature rising and the significant decrease of rainfalls across Iran have put the country in a hard situation regarding electricity supply during peak consumption periods.

This year, however, new deteriorating factors like severe drought and the decline in the country’s water resources as well as a new wave of illegal cryptocurrency mining across the country have also worsened the situation.

Iranians are currently left in the dark for several hours each day based on a pre-planned outage program implemented by the Energy Ministry.

Iran’s Power Generation, Distribution, and Transmission Company (known as Tavanir) has previously announced that the company is implementing over 40 different programs for managing the situation and to prevent blackouts in the country, however, so far these programs do not seem to be working as expected.

EF/MA