Iran’s triple crisis is reshaping daily life

Power and water outages have combined with record-breaking heat. Three Iranians tell us how they’ve had to adjust.

Tehran, Iran – Every morning at 6am, Sara reaches for her phone – not to check messages, but to see when the day’s blackout will begin.

The 44-year-old digital marketer in Tehran has memorised the weekly electricity schedule yet still checks her phone each morning for last-minute changes as she plans her life around the two-hour power cuts.

“Without electricity, there is no air conditioner to make the heat tolerable,” Sara says, describing how Iran’s convergent crises – water scarcity, power shortages and record-breaking temperatures – have fundamentally altered her daily routine.

The water service cuts are unannounced. They last hours at a time and truly unnerve Sara, so she scrambles to fill buckets whenever she can before the taps run dry.

For millions of Iranians, this summer has brought survival challenges in light of record-breaking heat, according to data from Iran’s Meteorological Organization.

The country is simultaneously grappling with its fifth consecutive year of drought, chronic energy deficits and unprecedented heat, a perfect storm that is exposing the fragility of basic services.

The Meteorological Organization said rainfall is down 40 percent during the current water year, the 12-month rainfall-tracking period, which starts in autumn.

As of July 28, Iran had received only 137mm (5.4 inches) of precipitation compared with the long-term average of 228.2mm (9 inches).

The electricity shortage is rooted in both infrastructure limitations and fuel supply challenges that have caused production capacity to fall behind rapidly rising demand.

An October report from parliament’s Research Center showed 85 percent of Iran’s electricity comes from fossil fuels, 13 percent from hydropower and the remainder from renewables and nuclear power.

While Iran possesses vast gas and oil reserves, decades of sanctions and underinvestment in transmission networks and power plants mean the system can’t keep up with consumption.

Adding to these capacity constraints, fuel supply disruptions have forced some power stations to resort sometimes to using mazut (heavy fuel oil) instead of natural gas, but authorities try to restrict it due to air pollution concerns.

Summer droughts compound the crisis by reducing hydroelectric generation precisely when air conditioning demand peaks, leaving millions of Iranians planning their lives around predictable blackouts and unpredictable water outages.

Crisis

Twenty-six-year-old Fatemeh moved to Tehran from Andisheh, a town 15km (9 miles) west of the capital, a year ago to pursue her education.

She rented her first apartment, an exciting milestone that became a daily exercise in crisis management.

With only two bottles of drinking water and a block of ice available, she carefully rationed her supplies although she used precious ice to cool her feet.

Showering and using the bathroom became challenges, she says, describing how she ordered expensive bottled water online and used two bottles just to shower.

Now, after months of unpredictable outages, Fatemeh has a survival routine: storing water in multiple containers, pouring it into her evaporative cooler when cuts occur and tossing blocks of ice into vents during extreme heat.

When both the water and electricity go, she says it “feels like having a fever” and she soaks towels in her stored water to press them against her body for relief.

The balcony offers no escape. The air outside remains hotter than indoors, even at night.

The infrastructure crisis extends beyond household inconveniences and is threatening livelihoods across the economy as offices and retail shops are forced to close for hours or for the day.

The repeated shutdowns and the economic pinch they cause could lead to layoffs, affecting families who depend on these jobs.

Small businesses face particular challenges.

Pastry shop owners have shared videos of themselves throwing spoiled cakes away after refrigerators fail.

Remote work, promoted as a solution, becomes impossible when homes lack both electricity and internet connectivity.