Government offices and institutions in at least 13 provinces will be closed on Saturday, August 23, due to the regime’s inability to provide sufficient energy. The Coordinating Council of Banks also announced that all banks in Tehran will be closed on that day.
The main reasons cited for these closures are extreme heat, rising temperatures, energy saving and “management” of energy consumption, and “helping to stabilize the grid.”
In some of these provinces, the working hours of government offices and public institutions were also reduced on Tuesday and Wednesday, August 19 and 20.
In recent weeks, several provinces in Iran have been shut down for multiple days due to energy shortages and the water and electricity crisis.
According to analysts, such decisions reflect deep-rooted and chronic deficiencies in infrastructure management and development—weaknesses that Iran’s regime has been unable to overcome in recent years.
Earlier, after the regime decided to close government offices, people on social media dismissed the decision as useless and diversionary, stressing that the root of the water and electricity crisis lies not in people’s daily consumption, but in the regime’s mismanagement and policies.
Last summer as well, the government repeatedly closed offices in 18 to 21 provinces in an attempt to reduce pressure on the electricity grid.
Although the declared aim of these measures is to reduce electricity consumption and prevent widespread blackouts, experts argue that due to the absence of structural planning, such shutdowns are only temporary fixes that create further problems.
On August 18, the regime’s Energy Minister Abbas Aliabadi stated that the peak electricity consumption period in Iran had passed, but power outages would nevertheless continue at least until the end of summer.
Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, CEO of Iran Grid Management Company, also confirmed four-hour-long blackouts in some cities.
Justifying the outages, he said: “In recent days, we have lost a significant portion of the hydroelectric power plants’ capacity for electricity generation due to a substantial reduction in dam reservoirs, and we are facing more limitations in electricity supply.”
According to domestic media reports and citizen accounts, in some Iranian cities water and electricity are cut off for eight to 10 hours daily, disrupting people’s lives.
This year, the scheduled and regular cuts to water and electricity began earlier than in previous years, starting in May.
