What happened

Extreme heat and surging electricity demand exposed power-system weaknesses across Algeria, Tunisia and Libya during 14–19 July. Algeria's official APS news agency said an exceptional heat-related technical fault at the Sidi Okba electrical installation caused sudden outages overnight from Tuesday 14 July into Wednesday 15 July; supply was restored progressively, while separate heat-related local faults affected other provinces. Bloomberg reported that roughly a quarter of Algeria's provinces were affected in the country's worst blackout in two decades. Tunisia's utility STEG linked frequent outages to the heatwave, demand and the Algerian malfunction, then announced scheduled cuts of up to seven hours a day. Libya's 17 July nationwide grid collapse was a separate failure within the same regional heatwave: a 400 kV transmission-line trip cascaded through major generating stations and water infrastructure, removing about 1,350 MW. Egypt supplied an initial 70 MW through the cross-border interconnection to help restart Libya's system. The regional grouping reflects contemporaneous heat stress, not a claim that the Algerian fault caused Libya's outage.

When cited sources give different casualty, damage or spill figures for this event, they’re reported side by side above rather than merged into one number. See how confidence levels work.