Tehran, Iran, Jul. 15
By Milad Fashtami - Trend:
The electricity consumption rate in Iran is sharply increasing, as the figure is now near the country's total generation capacity, Iran's Fars News Agency reported on July 15.
The stored electricity of Iran's power plants has also fallen drastically, reaching 470 megawatt.
Iran's electricity consumption peak reached 46,988 megawatt hours on July 13.
The electricity peak on the mentioned day was 2,837 megawatt hours more than the same day previous year, Iran's Fars News Agency reported.
The country's industries consumed some 3,199 megawatt hours of electricity on July 13.
Iran's Mehr News Agency reported on July 13 that the stored liquid gas of Iranian power plants is nearly finished.
If the oil ministry fails to provide enough gas to the power plants, then numerous blackouts would be expected across the country in summer.
Official reports suggest that Iran's consumption peak reached 74,000 megawatt in the past few days.
Iran's oil ministry's latest report suggests that in the past two weeks the liquid fuel consumption of the country's power plants has been doubled.
According to SHANA News Agency, some 2.02 billion liters of liquid fuel (diesel oil and mazut) was consumed in Iran in the first two weeks of summer (145 million liters per day). The figure was around 1.044 million liters (some 150 million liters per day) in the last week of spring.
Iran's total liquid fuel output (including gasoline, diesel oil, mazut, and kerosene) is a little more than 265 million liters per day. In another words, the country's power plants consumed over 55 percent of the total liquid fuel produced in the country, which is twice the consumption rate of the previous year.
According to the oil ministry, Iran's power plants averagely consumed 77 million liters of liquid fuel in the previous year.
The government limits transferring gas to power plants in winter, and instead delivers liquid fuel to the plants. But in summer the ministry has enough gas to meet the power plants' demands.
The figure of liquid gas being transferred to the power plants this summer is nearly twice the previous year and even more than in winter.
The reason behind the fact is still unknown, however, Seyyed Zaman Hosseini, the managing director of Tehran Regional Electric Company, told Fars News Agency on July 6 that due a problem the flow of gas to the country's power plants have been limited, so in order to avoid any blackout the oil ministry was forced to use the liquid gas that was stored for winter.
Iran has 75 power plants with the liquid gas reserves enough for 45 days. The power plants have the capacity to receive over 200 million cubic meters of gas per day, but due to gas shortage the country meets around 40 percent of the power plants' needs with liquid fuel.
A quick look at Iranian power plant's gas consumption rate in the first 14 days of previous summer shows that the country had no problem in providing enough gas at the time.
Iran's total gas consumption in February two years ago was a little over 505 million cubic meters. Power plants and industrial units' consumption accounted for 141 million cubic meters of the mentioned amount, while the household's consumption was a little over 364 million cubic meters.
It is while over 240 million cubic meters of gas were delivered to power plants and industrial units in July same year.
Iran natural gas output currently stands at 570 million cubic meters per day.