Iran again closes schools, offices to conserve power amid shortages
Order affects third of Islamic Republic’s provinces, including Tehran; oil-rich country’s energy woes thought to stem in part from reported Israeli attack on gas pipe in February
TEHRAN — Iran has ordered schools and public buildings in a third of the country’s provinces, including Tehran, to close on Saturday, as several power plants remain shut down by the latest in a series of fuel shortages.
Despite Iran’s huge oil and gas reserves, the country, hit by years of international sanctions, has been forced to ration electricity in recent months as sub-zero temperatures have prompted a surge in demand that its aging power stations have been unable to meet. Iran’s energy shortage is also thought to stem, in part, from a reportedly Israeli attack on a major gas line in the country.
The closures ordered on Friday include the capital Tehran as well as the Shiite Muslim shrine city of Qom, Kurdistan in the west and Mazandaran and Ardabil on the Caspian coast.
The decision was taken “because of the cold and to manage electricity consumption,” the official IRNA news agency said.
Iran already ordered similar closures late last year after rolling blackouts plunged homes and businesses into darkness in November.
Government offices in Tehran were closed for four straight days in December and schoolchildren were ordered to stay home across more than half of the country.
According to a December report in The New York Times, Iran’s energy woes have been exacerbated by an attack on a major gas pipe in the country in February. The Times said the attack, which it attributed to Israel, had forced Tehran to dip into its emergency gas reserves, leaving the government with a depleted energy supply that, despite Iran’s vast natural gas and oil reserves, it is struggling to replenish.
After Iran attacked Israel on October 1, Israel reportedly also weighed a strike on the Islamic Republic’s energy facilities, but decided against it amid White House opposition, and Arab Gulf states’ concern that such a strike would trigger an Iranian retaliation on their own energy facilities.
Iran is openly committed to Israel’s destruction, and operates a network of regional proxies — the so-called Axis of Resistance, which includes Hamas, Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis — that have waged war on Israel since October 2023.
