The Summer 2026 Blackouts Exposed Tunisia’s Fragile Power Grid

The rolling blackouts of summer 2026 provided a stark illustration of the fragility of Tunisia’s electricity system. The outages impacted every tier of the economy, from households and small businesses to heavy industry. For some, the interruptions were merely an inconvenience. For others, they resulted in damaged equipment, lost inventory, halted production, and canceled workdays. During the hottest hours of the day, demand outstripped available capacity, forcing STEG (Tunisia’s national electricity and gas utility) to temporarily cut power to certain zones to maintain grid stability. The situation was exacerbated by air conditioning-driven consumption spikes and disruptions in electricity imports from Algeria.

A System Running on Empty?

However, a return to relative stability does not resolve the underlying issue. According to Chakib Ben Mustapha, an economist and energy policy consultant, load shedding is primarily a grid protection mechanism. It becomes concerning when it becomes repetitive.

“The multiplication and systematization of outages signal a model under severe strain,” he notes.

This pressure stems from multiple factors, chief among them a system forced to produce more while investments in certain generation capacities have sharply declined. Citing a recent report from the Tunisian Economic Observatory (OTE), he highlights that “STEG’s investments in power plants plummeted by 87% between the 2016–2020 and 2021–2025 periods, dropping from 1.947 billion dinars to just 248 million dinars.” Meanwhile, electricity consumption has continued to rise.

The Grid Architecture Mismatch

Tunisia’s challenge goes beyond a simple shortage of solar panels. It runs deeper. The priority must be securing existing production, reinforcing the grid, integrating new producers, and managing demand peaks that are becoming increasingly difficult to handle.

This is where Ben Mustapha’s analysis takes on a broader dimension. For decades, Tunisia’s power system was built around large, centralized generation units. The energy transition is dismantling this logic. New renewable plants are often located far from major consumption hubs, while authorization-based projects are multiplying injection points across the grid. In other words, generating more electricity does not automatically mean it’s available where it’s needed.

“STEG’s grid was designed for conventional power generation with centralized production hubs,” Ben Mustapha explains.

Consequently, the rise of renewables now demands a different grid architecture capable of managing more dispersed and variable generation. This shift also impacts SMEs. Industrial self-generation is expected to grow as exporters seek to reduce their carbon footprint. Yet, medium-voltage networks were not necessarily designed to accommodate this proliferation of producers. At the household level, self-consumption poses similar challenges on low-voltage networks, particularly in the absence of smart meters that would allow grid operators to better monitor and manage power flows.

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