Power Shortage Is the Result of Two Decades of Underinvestment; Private Sector Ready to Bridge the Gap
Habibeh Rahimian, Journalist
According to Sedaye Sama News, Hamidreza Salehi, Chairman of the Board of the Iranian Energy Export Federation and Related Industries, said that Iran’s ongoing electricity and energy shortages are primarily the result of decades of insufficient investment.
“Unfortunately, for many years the country has suffered from electricity and energy deficits due to a lack of adequate investment. The necessary measures should have been taken long ago to prevent the current situation,” he said.
Salehi noted that over the past two decades neither successive governments invested sufficiently in the energy sector nor created the conditions for private sector participation. In addition, the required legal and financial mechanisms for effective private investment were never established.
He added that recent military attacks, including the 12-day war and security-related incidents in different parts of the country, have damaged parts of Iran’s energy infrastructure, further worsening shortages of electricity and natural gas.
According to Salehi, the government should allow the private sector to seize this opportunity by investing in the energy industry. He stressed that the government should gradually withdraw from electricity distribution and energy trading and create conditions for greater private sector participation.
“Otherwise, the country will face even greater challenges in electricity generation and energy investment every year,” he warned.
Regarding energy consumption, Salehi said that little progress has been made in improving efficiency. Although Iran has accelerated investment in solar power and renewable energy projects, he emphasized that new solar plants will not be able to eliminate the country’s electricity deficit within the next one to two years, meaning both households and industries will continue to face shortages.
He stressed that resolving the energy crisis requires a comprehensive national strategy. While household power outages create inconvenience, electricity cuts in industrial sectors inflict far greater economic losses and seriously undermine production and exports.
Salehi also said the Energy Export Federation has repeatedly held meetings with the Presidential Office, the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Oil, and other government agencies to present the private sector’s readiness to help address the country’s energy imbalance.
He concluded that the government should reduce its role in the energy market, reform energy governance, and transfer greater responsibility to the private sector. The federation has proposed allowing private companies to supply electricity to industries, estimating that such a move could generate 20–30 trillion tomans in revenue for the government. However, he said, authorities continue to follow previous policies and have yet to fully utilize private sector capabilities.
