By Rahim Zamanov - Trend:
The government would be able to export an additional $500 million worth of oil and gas if Iranians reduce their electricity consumption by 10 per cent, the Iranian IRIB News Agency quoted Mohammad Hossein Zarbakhsh, an official with the Iran Energy Efficiency organisation (IEEO), as saying on Mar. 12.
"By implementation of the first phase of the Subsidy Reform Plan, Iran's electricity consumption was reduced by 10 per cent," he explained, adding that the reduction was not in the consumption peak time.
"Currently some 22 users are connected to Iran's national grid," Zarbakhsh said.
"Each Iranian household on average consumes 3200 kilowatt hours of electricity," he noted.
He went on to note that electricity prices in the second phase of the Subsidy Reform Plan are supposed to increase by 24 per cent.
Mehdi Jamshidi, an official with the National Iranian Gas Company said on March 11 that Iran managed to decrease the gas power plant consumption rate by 10 per cent by installing data management systems.
"By doing so, some four billion rials of which $133,000 is based on the exchange rate of the USD, have been saved," he said.
"The aforementioned system has been put into operation in a number of gas power plants so far," Jamshidi said, adding that it will soon be installed in all the country's power plants.
Iran's power consumption grows eight percent annually.
Hamid Chitchian, Iran's Energy Minister told Shana on March 4 that 120 trillion rials ($4.8 billion based on official USD rate in Iran on March.4) has been allocated based on pay-back contracts in the budget law of the current calendar year, started March 21, 2013, to increase the efficiency of thermal power plants (TPP). Some 120 trillion rials were allocated in next year's budget law to improve TPPs' efficiency as well.
He went on saying that the TPPs' efficiency is aimed to expect an increase from its current 37.5 percent to 50 percent. The country's power generation capacity is currently over 70 gigawatts.
The managing director of the Iran Power Generation Transmission and Distribution Management Company (TAVANIR), Homayoun Haeri, said on Feb. 22, that Iran is the world's 14th largest electricity producer.
"The country ranks first in the Middle East," he said.
"Iran is also on top of the list of the world's top electricity consumer nations," Haeri noted.
Iran currently trades power with Turkey, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq.
It seeks to become a major regional exporter of electricity and has attracted more than $1.1 billion in investments for the construction of three new power plants.
Based on the Fifth Five-Year Economic Development Plan, Iran should annually add 5000 MW to its power generation capacity.
Iran plans to boost its electricity generation capacity to reach 73GW, by the end of the Fifth Five-Year Economic Development Plan (March 2016).
Edited by S.M.