The Iran Water and Power Resources Development Company (IWPCO) says the second unit of the Karoun-4 Dam power plant has been connected to the national electricity grid.
The executive manager of the project, Hossein Ranjbaran, said on Saturday that the second unit will add 250 megawatts of electricity to the country's capacity, IRNA reported.
He added that the synchronization operation for the second unit of the power plant was carried out successfully in less than two months after the first unit came on stream.
The first unit of the power plant entered the national power network on December 11, 2010 and generated 54,834 megawatt hours of power in its first month of activity.
"So far, over 1.6 billion cubic meters of water has accumulated behind the Karoun-4 reservoir, which is a large body of water, and would suffice for the launch of two more power plant units," the Iranian official explained.
Ranjbaran said four 250-megawatt units have been designed for the Karoun-4 Dam power plant, which is located in the western province of Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari. It is projected that the power plant, which is scheduled to be completed by March 2012, will be able to generate over 2,107 gigawatt hours of power per year.
In November, IWPCO Managing Director Mohammadreza Rezazadeh said the capacity of Iranian hydroelectric power plants will eventually reach 26,000 megawatts.
He put the current capacity of the country's hydroelectric power plants at 4,500 megawatts and said that there are some other projects on track that will add 7,500 megawatts of electricity to the country's capacity in the near future.
Iran had a total annual electricity generation capacity of 53,000 megawatts before 2009, and plans to add 5,000 megawatts of capacity to the grid annually.
Iran is currently able to construct and operate various kinds of hydroelectric power plants. It is also building power plants in Oman, Iraq, Syria, and other neighboring countries and is engaged in dam construction activities in Tajikistan, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, while consultations are underway with a number of other countries, PressTV reported.
In 2010, Iran won a contract to build a dam in Afghanistan and another contract to build a power plant in Syria. In one of its most important international projects, Iran will start the construction of a $200 million hydroelectric dam in Nicaragua later this year.