Investigating the Causes of Power Outages in the City of Tehran in the Last Years of the Pahlavi Regime

Power outages in Iran are not a new issue, and in the last years of the Pahlavi regime, the population was affected by widespread power outages. The unbridled growth of Tehran in the 1350s and the lack of necessary development in the production sector in relation to the population on the one hand and the increase in the growth rate of electricity demand compared to the growth rate of electricity supply and the lack of necessary investment for the development of electricity production and transmission and distribution capacity on the other hand, had led to blackouts and electricity shortages. To solve the blackout problem of power outage and prevent a recurrence, the government took several measures including turning off the lights in the streets, parks and government offices in the early hours of the night and temporary power outages in residential areas and neighborhoods across the country, especially in Tehran. Other solutions such as implementing the blackout and darkness plan (passive air defense) in Tehran, turning off the lights of some streets in Tehran and establishing a program to reduce the load consumption of the interconnected grid during emergencies were also been used by the Electricity Department to provide electricity to the city of Tehran. This article aims to investigate the causes and consequences of power outage in Tehran during the last decade of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi’s rule. The result of the research show that despite the measures taken by the authorities, the problem of blackouts continued in the domestic sector, to such an extent that the government was forced to close factories and production units in order to deal with the peak electricity consumption in the summer and solve the issue of electricity shortage.