National energy center responds to widespread outages

In response to recent power outages, the National Energy Control Center (NECC) has announced a series of suggestions to combat what it describes as “unprecedented records of power consumption that are only expected to rise.”

In a statement released on Tuesday, the NECC urged citizens to “use electricity sparingly whenever possible,” and to avoid as far as possible “turning on heaters, air conditioners, electric appliances and especially, lights.”

The NECC announced in its statement that the recent outages have been caused by a combination of “rising temperatures and an increase in power consumption which has overwhelmed the [power grid’s] capacity.” It also confirmed that these factors “forced the Center to decrease the load on the grid for safety reasons.”

Explaining the current deficiency, a source at the Ministry of Electricity and Power confirmed that the power grid had become overwhelmed due to the fact that power generating plants have been affected by the decreased supplies of natural gas on which the plants operate.

Meanwhile, a source at the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) has stated that the grid “is receiving the amount of gas needed to operate,” an amount which will nonetheless be increased “in order to avoid further outages.”

In related news, Cairo’s second metro line suffered a 10-minute-long power outage on Tuesday morning, forcing passengers to pry the carriage doors open and walk down the tracks to the nearest station.

Monday and Tuesday's widespread outages mark the first reports of such incidents since the ouster of Mohamed Morsi, whose administration was largely seen as responsible for frequent blackouts.