Power outages have been seen across Egypt over the past few days. Citizens complain about electricity cuts for long periods, especially during high temperatures. Pushing the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company calls on citizens to ration consumption.
Outages have taken place in in Aswan, Luxor, Assiut, Sohag, Alexandria and a number of Delta governorates. Informed sources told Al-Masry Al-Youm that ashortage of more than 3,000 megawatts was recorded for the first time due to the increasing consumption.
Peak electricity consumption in Egypt, according to the sources, is from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm. The national control center reduces the loads at some factories, especially those behind on payments before it cuts off power.
Mahmoud Saad Balbaa, the head of the company, urged citizens to reduce electricity consumption, especially at peak times, adding that the control center has to reduce the loads to protect the electrical grid at peak times.
Balbaa said the outages were for several reasons, including delays in linking the West Damietta and Abu Qir power stations to the electrical network. Those stations were planned to be linked to the network by beginning of the summer. He also blamed the cuts on a shortage of natural gas and diesel oil, and high temperatures.
He added that increasing consumption was due to the increase in number of air-conditioners, and electric theft in light of the security failure.
Dozens of villagers in Edfu, Aswan blocked railways Tuesday in protest of the frequent power outages.
Railways were blocked for more than two hours, until senior tribesmen and security services intervened to reopen the traffic. They promised to coordinate with officials to end this problem.
