As snow blankets Kabul, many residents say the electricity disappears just when they need it most. During the coldest days, power cuts grow longer and more frequent, leaving homes in darkness and families struggling to stay warm. People say these repeated outages have disrupted the rhythm of their daily lives. Most households rely on electricity to heat their homes, yet Breshna, the state power utility under Taliban control, has failed to reduce the outages.
In conversations with the Hasht-e Subh Daily, Kabul residents call for stable electricity and an end to constant power cuts. They say electricity disappears entirely during the day. At night, it returns only on a rotating schedule, often at inconvenient hours or deep into the night. Despite receiving less electricity than before, they say their electricity bills have increased.
In the middle of winter, many homes across Kabul remain dark. Families sit in bone-chilling cold, waiting for hours for the lights to come back on. Long outages, expensive fuel, and rising electricity costs have turned everyday life into a daily struggle.
Aziza Mohammadi, a resident of Kabul, says she counts every minute until the electricity returns so she can rush through her daily chores. She explains that power cuts in Kabul follow no clear pattern. Sometimes electricity comes back in the middle of the night, at a time when it does little to help people.
Mohammadi says, “Electricity is a basic need of society. Almost everything depends on it now. When it snows, this need is ignored, and the power is completely cut. Just today, one or two days after the snowfall, we had no electricity at all from morning until evening.” She believes that serious and practical steps by the Taliban to produce electricity and reduce outages could ease much of this hardship.
Amin, another Kabul resident, says electricity is available for only about six hours out of every 24. He says this is nowhere near enough and adds that snowfall has become another excuse for the Taliban to cut even this limited supply.
He says, “In Kabul, we live without electricity for 18 hours a day. Electricity comes for only six hours. Even though Afghanistan imports power from several neighboring countries, the population has grown, and multiple families now live on one block. Many people have turned to solar power to meet some of their needs because government electricity barely exists, especially these days.”
Rashid Arman, also from Kabul, says the lack of electricity at night has made family life even harder. Children cannot study in the dark, and many families endure severe cold without heating.
He says, “On the days it snowed, we had no electricity for two nights in a row. Snowfall always increases outages, but even without snow, Kabul’s electricity has no schedule. It comes for one hour during the day and one hour at night. When the power goes out, our work and our lives come to a complete stop because nothing works without electricity.”
Power outages have also triggered water shortages across Kabul. Residents say that when electricity cuts off, water pumps stop working, sharply reducing access to drinking water. They are urging authorities to provide stable electricity and address the problem immediately before the water crisis worsens during the winter.
Najib, another Kabul resident, says modern urban life depends heavily on electricity, including access to water. He explains that without power, city life feels incomplete and families face serious challenges.
He says, “In Kabul, everything has become modern, from toilets to most household appliances, and all of it depends on electricity. But electricity is missing. When it snows, outages increase. Without water, life becomes extremely difficult because most families rely on wells and water pumps. When the power cuts, water disappears too. Power outages peak in both winter and summer. Because of this, I had to borrow money to buy a solar system just to have light in my home at night.”
Economic experts say the only long-term solution to the country’s power crisis lies in developing domestic electricity production. They point to electricity shortages and rising demand in Kabul as the main reasons behind the outages, forcing Breshna to distribute power on a rotating basis.
Abdul Nasir Rishtia, an economic affairs expert, says, “We must focus seriously on producing energy inside the country to solve this problem permanently. Every natural event, whether floods, rain, or snow, leads to long power outages. Next, authorities should carefully review transmission routes and move lines to less vulnerable areas. Around the world, advanced technology is used to monitor power poles, and during heavy snowfall, workers clear them to prevent excessive pressure.”
Afghanistan imports about 80 percent of its electricity from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Iran, receiving roughly 760 megawatts each day. The United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank have previously reported that the political crisis following the Taliban takeover, along with sanctions and economic restrictions, reduced investment in the energy sector and worsened electricity shortages.
The Taliban’s Economic Deputy Office has said that Breshna signed a contract with several private companies to produce more than 9,000 megawatts of electricity. Additional contracts aim to generate 284 megawatts through partnerships with domestic and foreign investors.
Although power outages are not new, residents say the situation has grown worse since the Taliban returned to power.
A few days ago, Breshna announced that electricity imported from Uzbekistan was experiencing technical issues due to recent snow and storms, resulting in power cuts in several areas. The utility said an outage on the 220-kilovolt transmission line between Pul-e Khumri and Kabul reduced electricity supply in Parwan, Kapisa, Panjshir, Kabul, Nangarhar, Laghman, Maidan Wardak, Ghazni, Logar, Paktia, Khost, and parts of Baghlan. The Taliban have not yet announced when the line will be restored.
In response to complaints about rising electricity bills, Breshna said in a Facebook post that costs rise when people use multiple electrical appliances at the same time for short periods, leading to higher consumption charges.
You can read the Persian version of this report here:
پرچاوی برق در کابل؛ مردم از ساعتها ماندن در تاریکی به ستوه آمدهایم
