Tunisia is enduring a brutal heatwave that has pushed temperatures to a staggering 49.7°C in Kairouan, shattering historical records across multiple governorates and placing immense strain on the nation’s power infrastructure.
As the mercury soared, electricity consumption skyrocketed to roughly 5,000 megawatts—a 30 percent surge driven by air conditioning use—while state utility STEG’s maximum generation capacity stands at only 4,630 megawatts. This widening deficit, compounded by a technical fault at a power plant in Algeria that reduced crucial electricity imports, has left STEG with no choice but to enforce rolling load-shedding across the country.
Company officials stress that these preventative outages are essential to avert a total nationwide blackout, though they acknowledge that the cuts are often impossible to schedule precisely due to the unpredictable pressure on the grid. The disruptions have sparked widespread public frustration, with outages affecting hospitals, small businesses, and daily life, while the agricultural sector braces for crop fires and livestock stress.
Economists estimate that direct losses from the power cuts could reach up to 50 million dinars if the heatwave persists, with indirect economic damage potentially tripling that figure. STEG has called on citizens to ration electricity during peak afternoon hours and assured that sensitive facilities are prioritized, but until the extreme temperatures subside, the network will remain dangerously overstretched. This crisis underscores Tunisia’s urgent need for energy infrastructure modernization and investment in renewable alternatives to withstand the escalating challenges of a warming climate.
TunisianMonitorNews
