A baby does not stop needing clean water because the pumps have shut down. A patient cannot postpone the use of refrigerated medicine or medical equipment. An elderly person living on the 14th floor cannot simply take the stairs when the elevator stops working. Parents cannot suspend cooking, washing or caring for their children until the state restores the water.
During the brutal Iranian summer, when temperatures in parts of the country exceed 40 degrees Celsius and climb above 50 in the south, air conditioning is not merely a comfort. For children, older people and those with medical conditions, it can become a matter of survival.
The authorities can announce a two-hour power cut. A child's fever, a patient's oxygen machine and a family's need for clean water do not follow that schedule.
Iran's water and electricity emergencies are not separate crises. Water distribution depends on electricity to operate pumping stations and move water through municipal networks, especially into apartment buildings and elevated neighbourhoods. When electricity fails, pumps stop working and water pressure falls. One failing system pulls another down with it.
‘No one to turn to’
Reports from across Iran describe daily electricity cuts lasting for hours alongside recurring water shortages. In Boumehen, east of Tehran, residents reportedly received running water on only two days during one week, and even then for only a few hours.
"We have a sick person at home. We no longer know who to turn to," one resident said.
In Pardis, another city east of Tehran, a resident of a 14-storey building said a four-hour power cut left the elevators out of service. "How are we supposed to climb all these stairs?" he asked.
In Ilam, power cuts reportedly lasted as long as four hours while temperatures reached around 46 degrees Celsius. In Khuzestan, one of Iran's principal oil- and electricity-producing provinces, residents complained that outages had resumed as temperatures crossed 50 degrees.
This is one of modern Iran's deepest contradictions. A country with some of the world's largest oil and natural gas reserves cannot guarantee electricity to its own population. Provinces that generate much of Iran's energy cannot rely on power in their own homes.
Factories lose production hours, small businesses lose income, food and medicine spoil, and families organise their days around outage schedules that are not always accurate.
During the summer they lose electricity; during the winter they face gas shortages. The crisis changes with the season, but it never disappears.
‘Energy imbalance’
Officials describe this as an "energy imbalance," a phrase that makes the problem sound technical rather than political. But Iran's energy crisis was not created overnight.
For years, electricity generation failed to keep pace with demand. Transmission networks deteriorated, renewable energy remained marginal and water systems continued to lose enormous quantities through leakage and decay.
In June 2026, Iran's Parliamentary Research Center reportedly projected a peak summer electricity deficit of roughly 13,600 megawatts.
The government's answer was to ask every Iranian to reduce electricity consumption by ten percent. Once again, citizens were instructed to compensate for failures they did not create.
A family can switch off a lamp. It cannot modernize a power station. A parent can shorten a child's shower. She cannot repair a leaking municipal water network. A shopkeeper can turn off an air conditioner, but he cannot recover decades of lost investment or build the electricity capacity the country requires.
Iran does face genuine environmental pressures. Drought, extreme heat and irregular rainfall have reduced water availability across the country. Climate change is making an already dry region hotter and more vulnerable.
But climate alone cannot explain why so much available water is wasted, why groundwater has been extracted beyond natural recovery or why inefficient agricultural practices remained dominant for decades.
Low efficiency
Even experts quoted by Iran's official news agency acknowledge as much.
Hashem Oraee, head of the Iran Energy Associations Union, estimated that nearly 90 percent of Iran's annual water consumption goes to agriculture, where efficiency remains extremely low.
He also said roughly one-third of the water entering urban distribution networks is lost before reaching consumers.
Iran is not simply running out of water. It is losing the water it still has. The current war did not create this crisis. It struck a system that was already fragile, underfunded and unable to meet national demand.
Iranian electricity officials have said more than 2,000 points across the national grid were damaged during the conflict, reducing available generating capacity by around 4,200 megawatts.
Those figures have not been independently verified, but they indicate the scale of the damage the authorities themselves claim to be facing.
Extended hours
In Bandar Abbas, residents described explosions followed by prolonged electricity cuts. One woman who depends on the internet for her income said she had already been struggling with government-imposed internet shutdowns before longer power cuts placed her work at further risk.
"We always had power cuts, but the hours have now extended," she said.
That distinction matters. The war made the outages longer and more dangerous, but it did not introduce Iranians to blackouts. Years of neglect had already done that.
Inside the home, the consequences are immediate. Refrigerators stop cooling food and medicine. Medical devices fail unless families can afford backup power. Elevators become unusable. Water no longer reaches upper floors when electric pumps stop working. Parents struggle to prepare food, wash clothes, sterilize baby bottles or care for elderly relatives and young children.
The word "outage" suggests a temporary interruption after which normal life resumes. But when electricity disappears every day, when water and power fail together, and when no one knows whether the published schedule can be trusted, the interruption becomes normal life.
Water and electricity are not luxuries. They are the foundations on which healthcare, sanitation, education, industry and family life depend.
Iran did not run out of intelligence, resources or human ability. Its people were deprived of functioning systems because those in power failed to build and maintain them.
Now the lights are going out, the taps are running dry, and ordinary Iranians are once again being asked to bear the cost.
