BAKU, Azerbaijan, Dec. 19
By Elnur Baghishov - Trend:
Iran is studying the construction of hydroelectric power plants (HPPs) with total capacity of about 15,000 megawatts, Director of Iran's Hydroelectric Power Plants Management Center Farbod Estiri said at a meeting on developing small HPPs organized in the country's Mazandaran province, Trend reports via IRNA.
About 1,000 megawatts of this will fall to the share of small HPPs, Farbod Estiri noted.
According to the director, the current electricity generation capacity of Iran's HPPs is 12,800 megawatts.
In this field, Iran ranks 19th in the world, 6th in Asia and 2nd the Western Asia region, the director noted.
Farbod Estiri stressed that in the last three years, special attention has been paid to the construction of small HPPs.
The share of HPPs in Iran's total electricity generation is 15 percent and significant progress will be made in the electricity generation by the country's small HPPs in the upcoming two years.
The total capacity of Iran's power plants is 81,000 megawatts, Estiri said, adding that 25,000 megawatts of the volume fall to the share of thermal (gas) power plants.
Farbod Estiri noted that 26.5 percent of the generated electricity in the world fall to the share of renewable sources. Thus, 16.4 percent of it is supplied from HPPs, 2.2 percent from biomass, 0.4 percent from solar panels and the rest from other alternative energy sources.
The meeting on developing small HPPs organized in the country's Mazandaran province brought together directors, experts of regional water companies from 21 Iranian provinces, as well as managers of 30 energy companies of the private sector. The meeting focused on construction of small and medium-sized HPPs on rivers; possibility of domestic production of all equipment used in power plants of the country; attracting investors to build HPPs; and development of renewable energy facilities in Iran.