Power cuts hit Giza amid heatwave as unprecedented demand bares faulty national grid

Residents of several Giza neighborhoods had no electricity or water for at least 12 hours starting Saturday evening, as temperatures soared across the capital to over 40C amid a heatwave.

An Electricity Ministry source speaking to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity said that the outage in Giza was caused by an electrical fire on a network cable as load on the national grid reached record levels. 

The government announced on Sunday that nationwide electricity consumption had reached its highest level in history.

Three residents of Giza’s Talbiya and Haram districts told Mada Masr that their supply of electricity was cut off on Saturday evening and had not returned by the same time on Sunday evening. Water had returned to some areas, however.

Several hours into the cuts, the Giza Governorate announced the “sudden failure” in a transformer station resulting in power outages and issues with water pumping in several residential areas. 

A second Electricity Ministry source said that the utilities administrator was notified of the outage at 10 pm, and maintenance work began at 11 am. 

The power outage resulted from two faults occurring 500 meters apart on the 11-volt cable running through the Thalathiny Street in Omraniyah, according to the same source, who added that repairs were completed and final works were taking place to resume power supply on Sunday evening.

Technical flaws are to be expected when electricity consumption surges during heatwaves and compounds load on the national grid, former head of the Electricity Regulatory Authority, Hafez Salmawy, told Mada Masr on Sunday.

“As temperatures rise, water consumption increases in buildings that rely on pumps, which impacts the water station, which operates for longer periods and consumes more electricity,” the former official said.

Aside from the increased load, cable capacity is also affected by the grid’s increased exposure to heat amid rising temperatures globally, said Salmawy.

To avoid issues arising when demand spikes, capacity on distribution networks should be increased for it to be sufficient to handle double the expected consumption, said Salmawy — a measure that would allow the Electricity Ministry to reroute supply to other cables.

He noted that such maintenance can be challenging to execute, however, since cables are located in densely populated areas with major traffic routes.

Circuit breakers should be in place to protect cables if transmission exceeds capacity, he continued, noting that cable fires could be the result of new faults in breakers, or in lapses in maintenance monitoring before periods of peak consumption. 

Maintenance at older stations is often deprioritized, however, the first Electricity Ministry source said, with spending often diverted to new projects. 

The outage at the Dahab Island generator came amid a heatwave that saw temperatures spike to around 41C on Saturday, with temperatures forecast to fall back below 40 by the end of the week.

The Electricity Ministry announced Saturday that the grid had recorded an unprecedented maximum load representing a five-percent increase compared to last year’s peak load. Consumption also increased  eight percent year-on-year in 2024, according to the latest annual report of the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company.

Rising demand over recent years has outpaced domestic fuel production, pushing Egypt’s government to introduce two years of summer power cuts to ration fuel consumption. Most areas of Egypt saw outages of up to six hours per day for months during the summer since 2023.

Seeking to avoid implementing the deeply unpopular program of power cuts in 2025, the government has turned to costly fuel imports to supplement the domestic yield of oil and gas.