Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 14
By Rahim Zamanov - Trend:
Iran's electricity consumption peak reached 29,136 megawatt hours on December 13, the IRNA News Agency reported on December 14.
The electricity peak on the mentioned day was 350 megawatt hours less than the same day previous year.
The stored electricity of Iran's power plants also hit 8,242 megawatt hours in the mentioned day.
The country's industries consumed some 3,417 megawatt hours of electricity on December 13.
The managing director of the Tehran Regional Electric Company, Seyed Zaman Hosseini, said on December 11 that the electricity consumption peak of Iran's capital, Tehran, is expected to reach 9,000 megawatt hours the next Iranian calendar year (to start on March 21, 2014), the ISNA News Agency reported.
"The figure is 6.5 per cent more than the current year," Hosseini said.
"After the implementation of a subsidy reform plan in the Iranian calendar year of 1389 (2010), the capital's electricity consumption fell by 1.5 per cent in the year of 1390. However, the figure rose by 2.5 per cent and 7 per cent, respectively, in the calendar year of 1391 and 1392 (current year)," he explained.
"The electricity consumption peak in the current year is around 8,500 megawatt hours," he added.
Former Deputy Energy Minister Mohammad Behzad said on July 5 that Iran is the Middle East's biggest electricity producer.
"The country also ranks 14th in the world in terms of electricity production," the ISNA News Agency quoted Behzad as saying.
Tehran's electricity production capacity is around 70,000 megawatt hours, Behzad said.
"By using energy-efficient lamps Iran has managed to save 400 megawatt hours of electricity each day," he added.
Behzad said in June that Iran has constructed power plants twice as many as the average number of power plants which were constructed in the world during the past decade.
The power generation capacity in Iran increased by 7 percent annually during the past 10 years, he said, adding that the figure has averaged 3.5 percent in the world.
Gholamreza Khoshkholq, an official with the Iran Power Generation Transmission & Distribution Management Company (TAVANIR), said in September that currently 28 million users are connected to Iran's national power grid.
"The figure would reach 30 million by the end of the current calendar year," the IRNA News Agency quoted Khoshkholq as saying.
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.