By Dalga Khatinoglu
Iran's power sector consumes about 400 million barrels of oil equivalent per year, sharing about one fourth of total primary energy usage in the country.
The latest weekly statistics, released on Energy Ministry's official website which covers statistics of last fiscal year, ended on March 21, indicate huge changes in the power sector, but not fundamentally.
According to the report, released on April 6, Iran has increased 2.871 GW power generation capacity including about 1.6-GW gas power plants, a 0.64-GW combined cycle power plant as well as a 0.52-GW hydroelectric power plant. However the actual power generation level increased by only 1.98 GW.
|
Power sector |
Last fiscal year |
Y/Y change |
Last year |
Two year ago |
|
Gas consumption (bcm) |
48.978 |
33.6% |
36.224 |
40.692 |
|
Diesel consumption (billion liters) |
9.231 |
-24.2% |
12.592 |
7.767 |
|
Fuel oil consumption (billion liters) |
10.281 |
-32.6% |
15.308 |
14.45 |
|
Actual power generation (GW) |
56.856 |
3% |
54.879 |
54.043 |
The statistics indicate that Iran increased gas supplement to power thermal power plants, which shares above 82.5 percent of the country's total power generation "capacity" during last fiscal year.
The country's total "power generation capacity" stood at 73.149 GW until March 20.
In regards to increasing the actual and nominal power generation capacity, it seems the efficiency of Iran's power plants hasn't become better during the couple of last years.
Hamid Chitchian, Iran's Energy Minister told Shana on March 4 that some 120 trillion rials ($4.8 billion based on official USD rate in Iran on March 4) has been allocated based on pay-back contracts during current fiscal year's budget law to increase the efficiency of thermal power plants (TPP).
He went on to say that the TPPs' efficiency is aimed to increase from its current 37.5 percent to 50 percent.
Iran has aimed to change all of gas thermal power plants into combined power plants (CCPP) which shares about 25.28 percent of the country's total power generation capacity. The efficiency of thermal power plants (excluding (CCPP) in Iran is about 31 percent while CCPPs' is 45 percent.
On the other hand, the country's electricity export decreased 14 percent to 9.965 billion KWh, while imports increased by 2 percent to 3.759 billion KWh during last fiscal year.
There is also a huge power loss during the transmission and distribution process, which reaches around 40 billion Kwh, or more than 14 percent of total actual electricity energy generation capacity. Iran hasn't been able to optimize the situation.
Dalga Khatinoglu is an expert on Iran's energy sector, head of Trend Agency's Iran news service.
Follow him on @dalgakhatinoglu