Record heat pushes Tunisia's power grid past its limits, seven cities among the world's hottest
On 21 July seven Tunisian weather stations ranked among the twenty hottest in the world: Kairouan recorded 49.6°C, second globally behind Yanbu in Saudi Arabia, while Tozeur, Gabès airport, Béja, Tunis-Carthage, Zaghouan and Jendouba all cleared 48°C. The paper attributes the strain to a surge in air-conditioning demand that pushed consumption beyond what the utility Steg can generate. Inkyfada's audit of the company, published two days earlier, shows the rolling cuts are structural rather than meteorological: the grid's reserve margin has fallen from 28 percent in 2022 to 20 percent this year, Steg carries 7.36 billion dinars of debt and 6.06 billion in unpaid customer bills, and electricity sells at 291 millimes per kilowatt-hour against a production cost of 456.