By Dalga Khatinoglu
Iran's Judiciary System issued a verdict and closed Tabriz power plant, which provides a half of province's electricity and shares 1.8 percent in total Iran power output.
The closure of the power plant caused electricity outage in a half of households in Tabriz on Oct.20.
The three-decade old 650-Mw power plant was designed and constructed by the French company Alstom. It's efficiency is 36.7 percent and worked 20.6 hours per day in 2013.
According to the latest statistics, released by Iran Energy Ministry, this power plant consumed 1.05 billion liters of fuel oil, 517,000 liters of diesel, as well as 135 million cubic meters of natural gas in 2013, a year that Iran had to use 36 billion liters of liquid fuels in power generation sector due to gas shortage.
The reason for closing Tabriz power plant based on the court's verdict was increased fuel oil consumption and air pollution.
The Iranian government increased gas delivery to power plants to about 50 billion cubic meters (bcm) last year, while about 20 billion liters of liquid fuels was burnt in this sector. Coming to the current year, Iran supplied gas power plants with 37.5 bcm (+13 percent) during 233 days of fiscal year, started on March 21, while only 2.366 billion liters of diesel (-44.3%) as well as 3.513 billion liters of fuel oil (-29.5%) was supplied to power plants.
It's not clear why the Iranian government hasn't been able to decrease fuel oil consumption in the Tabriz power plant during warm months of the current year, when the housing gas consumption was three times less than in colder months.
In total, 175.736 billion kWh of electricity was produced in 233 days of current fiscal year, of which 5.845 billion kWh (-3%) was exported. Iran also imported 2.316 billion kWh (+14%) of electricity energy.
Iran added 592 MW of power production to its capacity to reach 73,744 MW during the current fiscal year, while an additional 1,700 MW power generation capacity is projected by March 20, 2016.
According to official stats, some 222 million metric tons of pollutants were emitted as a result of using fossil fuel in power generation in 2013. This means that about 37 percent of CO2 emissions in Iran were caused by power plants in the mentioned year.
Air pollution costs $16 billion for Iranians annually, according to the World Health Organization.
Iran says it increased gas production capacity by 100 mcm/d to 660 mcm/d in 2014, while the same growth is expected for current year. About 82 percent of Iran's power is produced by thermal power plants.
Edited by CN
Dalga Khatinoglu is an expert on Iran's energy sector, head of Trend Agency's Iran news service.