Power Outages in Turkmenistan Lead to Dismissals as Blackouts Continue

Complaints from residents of Turkmenistan’s Mary Region over widespread power outages have led to inspections and the dismissal of several local officials, but electricity disruptions continue, Turkmen.news reported. The outages began in mid-June during extreme heat, with temperatures in the region regularly exceeding 40 degrees Celsius. Residents have struggled to use air conditioners, refrigerators, and water pumps. Locals say power has been cut almost daily for three to four hours at a time. On June 17, hundreds of residents, mostly women from the Bayramaly district, gathered outside the Mary regional administration building and demanded a solution, Radio Azatlyk reported. The demonstrators sought a meeting with Dovranberdi Annaberdiyev, the hakim of Mary Velayat. After the talks, residents said outdated transformers were unable to cope with demand and warned of a possible failure of the local power system. Participants in the meeting said they also proposed arranging a video call with the country’s president if local authorities could not resolve the issue. The regional hakim promised to take action within days. After the protest, inspectors from Ashgabat arrived in the region. Turkmen.news, citing sources, said several officials were dismissed after the inspection over suspected abuses in electricity distribution. Local residents claim some officials increased power supplies to commercial facilities in exchange for payments, while restricting deliveries to residential neighborhoods. Despite the personnel changes, electricity disruptions continue in parts of Mary Region. Authorities have also begun partial infrastructure upgrades. In Bayramaly district, residents were promised that worn-out transformers would be replaced, although no information has been released about modernization work in other areas. Power supply problems during the hot season occur regularly in Turkmenistan. They are often linked to aging electricity grids that cannot cope with higher demand from household appliances and cooling systems. Although modernization of the energy system is included in state development programs, local residents say infrastructure upgrades in some districts have been delayed for years.