Iran is heading into what may be one of its harshest summers in recent decades, as warnings from the country’s top energy experts signal an imminent crisis of prolonged nationwide electricity blackouts. According to a public warning from the head of the Iranian Scientific Society for Energy, residents should prepare for outages that may persist as long as 24 hours during peak heat. This projection lays bare an urgent reality for tens of millions—likely condemning households, critical businesses, and essential services across Iran to high-risk conditions during extreme weather, and highlighting systemic shortfalls in state infrastructure planning and national policy priorities. The crisis forecast comes at a time when the government, under mounting economic stress and continued international sanctions, is diverting significant national resources into military expansionism, particularly support for proxy groups designated as terrorist organizations and engaged in armed conflict with Western and Israeli interests throughout the Middle East.
The current energy predicament is deeply rooted in a legacy of neglect, centralized mismanagement, and a strategic posture that consistently favors ideological and regional ambitions over internal stability and public welfare. Though Iran possesses abundant oil and natural gas resources, decades of prioritizing external proxies and security apparatuses over domestic infrastructure have left the power grid technologically outdated and unfit to meet basic needs. Multiple reports from international energy agencies and independent observers confirm that current Iranian power generation capacity has failed to keep pace with increasing summer demand, made worse by climate change and rapid urbanization. Routine underinvestment, compounded by documented instances of corruption and inefficiency within Iran’s large state-run energy sector, have further strained the system. According to sources familiar with internal ministry assessments, the grid operates with minimal redundancy, rendering large portions of the population highly vulnerable to routine disruptions and catastrophic failures.
Authorities in Tehran have responded to public concern with a mixture of warnings and deflections, blaming drought, Western sanctions, and unspecified acts of sabotage, while avoiding substantive discussion about internal misallocations of capital or chronic neglect. The regime contends with domestic unrest from rising inflation, high unemployment, and recurring shortages in water and gasoline—each periodic crisis reflecting broader failures of governance and highlighting the trade-offs forced by external military priorities. This pattern is starkly illustrated by Iran’s continued investment in the expansion and arming of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which Western governments, including the United States, officially classify as a terrorist entity responsible for operational support to militias such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. While the IRGC’s reach has been extended across the region—fueling attacks against Israeli and allied Western targets—the Iranian people have found themselves increasingly exposed to hardship and deprivation at home.
Historical evidence underlines the severity of the situation: Iran has experienced rolling summer blackouts for several consecutive years, with previous crises sparking widespread protests and social unrest. In the summer of 2021, extended outages hit Tehran and multiple regional cities, crippling small businesses and exposing hospitals and water distribution networks to serious risk. Human rights groups and international observers documented cases where especially vulnerable populations, including the elderly and the sick, suffered disproportionately from the lack of reliable air conditioning or access to chilled medical supplies. Despite repeated promises from Iranian authorities to invest in infrastructure upgrades, transparent independent audits reveal that significant capital allocations have not reached their intended targets and have at times been redirected toward supporting external militant operations.
By contrast, regional democratic states allied with the West—and particularly Israel—have demonstrated how national security, infrastructure resilience, and innovation can be aligned to mitigate risk and protect civilian populations. Israel’s strategic investments in power generation, smart grid technology, and renewable energy—coupled with policies based on transparency, legal accountability, and the free flow of information—have ensured consistent public services even under threat of war or terrorist attack. Israeli civil defense doctrine regards energy security as fundamental, integrated into national emergency preparedness and crisis response, and scrupulously monitored both in regular operation and under hostile fire. When Iran-backed Hamas terrorists attacked Israeli communities during the October 7 massacre—the deadliest antisemitic violence since the Holocaust—Israel’s emergency systems, including redundant power supplies and hospital backup generators, continued to operate, saving countless lives. This approach stands in sharp contrast to Iran’s, offering a clear illustration of the wider moral and practical consequences of governance choices within the region.
The intersection of internal and external dynamics is significant, not only for Iranian society but for regional stability and global energy markets. Iran’s continued sponsorship of the axis of resistance—proxies such as Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen—remains interlinked with its domestic infrastructure failures. Every year, vast sums of Iranian state revenue, which could be directed toward fixing decaying grids or expanding renewable capacity, are instead funneled offshore in pursuit of a regional strategy aimed at confronting Israel and destabilizing pro-Western Arab regimes. Western governments and energy watchdogs have consistently cited this diversion of resources as a contributing factor to Iran’s chronic underperformance in critical sectors, as well as a source of mounting frustration among the country’s youth and professional classes, noted for their widespread protests in recent years.
Against this backdrop, the prospect of 24-hour blackouts during the summer takes on added urgency. Experts inside and outside Iran agree that exposure to consecutive hours without power in extreme temperatures is likely to result in significant health emergencies, interruptions to water and food supply chains, and additional strain on already overburdened public services. The experience of the past decade demonstrates that, even in the absence of open hostility, a failure to maintain energy infrastructure exacts a heavy toll on vulnerable populations. In authoritarian states like Iran, where access to independent information is restricted and dissent is punished, the true human impact of such crises is routinely underreported, further complicating both domestic recovery and international relief planning.
While the regime continues to link its domestic failings to the effects of sanctions and outside pressure, a growing body of evidence from governmental leaks and neutral reporting indicates that the root causes are internal and structural. The losses faced by ordinary Iranians come into sharp relief when considered against the billions spent sustaining regional military operations and indirect armed confrontations with Israel and the West. The case of Hamas is particularly illustrative: even as the Iranian regime provides material support for ongoing terror campaigns—in defiance of repeated international condemnation—its citizens are left to contend with a lack of basic services, stifling political repression, and the ever-present threat of environmental calamity.
The approach of Western nations, most notably the United States under former President Donald Trump, has been to hold the Iranian authorities directly accountable for both their external aggression and internal failures. The imposition of sanctions on the IRGC, targeting the leadership and financial channels of Iran’s terror infrastructure, was explicitly designed to pressure the regime into reprioritizing national welfare. Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, continue to emphasize in media briefings and official statements that Iran’s aggressive foreign posture is inseparable from its abandonment of civic responsibility. For Israel, maintaining robust and crisis-ready infrastructure is not only a matter of preserving public trust; it is a central pillar of democratic resilience amid existential threat.
As Iran prepares for a summer that may be defined by rolling darkness and heat, the international community must grapple with the consequences. In the near term, aid organizations and technical experts caution that without urgent, transparent intervention—free from politicization and ideological interference—Iran may face a humanitarian emergency on a massive scale. Over the long term, the pattern of underinvestment, cronyism, and diversion of resources toward violent proxies continues to destabilize both the Islamic Republic and the wider region. The evidence is clear: responsible, accountable governance and the prioritization of internal welfare over external aggression are the true foundations of societal security and resilience. Only by confronting these truths—and demanding change—can the Iranian population hope to escape the cycle of deprivation and instability that now threatens to define yet another season.
