Wearing jackets banned in Khuzestan offices to ‘reduce electricity consumption’
Iranian news agencies reported on Sunday, May 9, that wearing jackets in the offices of Khuzestan province during the current summer has been banned to “reduce electricity consumption.”
Mahmoud Dasht Bozorg, CEO of Khuzestan Regional Electricity Company, had proposed in a letter to Ghasem Soleimani Deshti, governor of the province, on Saturday that wearing jackets be prohibited for all employees and managers in Khuzestan from the beginning of June until the end of September of the current year in order to manage electricity consumption in the province.
With reduced rainfall and declining hydroelectric power generation, as well as delays in launching thermal power plants, officials from the Ministry of Energy have warned that the country will face a power shortage during this summer.
The Ministry of Energy also banned the use of air conditioning units in all Tehran agencies and offices on May 13.
The directive banning jacket-wearing in Khuzestan offices or air conditioning use comes as official statistics show that approximately 10 percent of the country’s generated electricity is lost during the distribution phase. This figure equals more than the total electricity consumption of the entire public sector of the country, including offices, and one-third of the total electricity consumption of all households in the country.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Energy, the country’s total non-nuclear electricity generation last year was 343 gigawatt-hours, of which approximately 10 gigawatt-hours were exported and 287 gigawatt-hours were sold to domestic customers. The remaining electricity (46 gigawatt-hours) was partially consumed at the power plants themselves and the rest was lost in the distribution network.
The share of the public sector, including offices, in the country’s electricity consumption is 8.5 percent. The household sector’s share is 32.4 percent, the industrial sector 36.3 percent, the agricultural sector 14.4 percent, and street lighting and the commercial sector combined account for approximately 8.4 percent of the country’s total electricity consumption.
Iran’s nuclear program, claiming to produce nuclear electricity, has for more than a decade resulted in crippling sanctions against the country, and the rate of achievement of the country’s electricity generation development program in recent years has consistently been less than half. This is while, according to statistics from the Ministry of Energy, the share of nuclear electricity in the country’s total electricity generation is less than 2 percent.
Seyyed Karim Hosseini, representative of Ahvaz in parliament, responding to the ban on wearing jackets in Khuzestan offices, posted on Twitter: “Addressing Khuzestan’s problems requires presenting practical solutions. Raising marginal issues will only take away opportunities and energy from managers.”
He added that prohibiting employees from “wearing jackets” has no practical effect in reducing electricity consumption.
According to Mr. Hosseini, this is achieved through methods such as collecting unauthorized cryptocurrency mining devices, reforming consumption patterns, and so on.
Source: Radio Farda
