Azerbaijan, Baku, July.24/ Trend R.Zamanov
Iran will be able to export 20,000 megawatt hours of electricity by the end of the next Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2015), Abbas Aliabadi, the Managing Director of MAPNA group said on Wednesday.
"Iran currently exports 1,400 megawatt hours of electricity to neighboring states," the IRNA News Agency quoted Aliabadi as saying.
"Iran, with production capacity of 70,000 megawatt hours, ranks 14th in the list of world's biggest electricity producers," he said.
"The production capacities of neighboring countries are low. For example Afghanistan with population of over 30 million people only produces 800 megawatt hours of electricity and Pakistan with population of over 176 million people produces 14,500 megawatt hours of electricity. This fact makes the neighboring states a good market for Iran's electricity exports," Aliabadi added.
Deputy Energy Minister Mohammad Behzad said earlier this month that Iran has constructed power plants twice as many as the average number of power plants which have been constructed in the world during the past decade.
The power generation capacity in Iran has grown by 7 percent annually during the past 10 years, he said, adding that the figure has averaged 3.5 percent in the world.
"The country's power generation capacity is currently at 68.38 gigawatts," he added.
Iran currently trades power with Turkey, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq.
Iran 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.
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