CAIRO — When his neighborhood is plunged into darkness, high school student Maximos Youssef is forced to study for his year-end exams by the light of a candle.

Youssef says the flame only makes sweltering summer nights without fan or air conditioner even hotter. But, he says, “there is no other option. We have exams. We need to study.”

The 18-year-old is one of millions of Egyptians whose tempers have been frayed by the recurrent power cuts hitting the country in recent days, blamed on — and contributing to — the nation’s plummeting reserves of foreign currency.

The outages have sparked scattered street protests across Egypt and calls on social networking sites for people to stop paying electricity bills, compounding the challenges facing President Mohammed Morsi and undermining the Islamist leader’s attempts to restore a sense of normalcy after two years of turmoil since the country’s 2011 uprising.

Morsi says Egypt only has 80 percent of its electricity needs met and that its turbines are outdated.