Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr.24
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Exporting electricity from Iran is not economically justified, said the experts at the research center of the Iranian parliament.
According to the experts, the average efficiency of thermal power plants in Iran is 37 percent. Taking this into consideration, exporting electricity from is not economically justified, Iran's Tabnak website reported on April 24.
Thermal power plants play a key role in meeting Iran's electricity need. These plants use natural gas and liquid fuel as feedstock.
The efficiency of thermal power plants should be increased to 55 percent to make exports of electricity economically justified, said the experts.
Considering the average price of exporting electricity at 10 cents and the average price of exporting natural gas at 30 cents, the efficiency of power plants should be increased in order to raise the price of natural gas input to power plants to 28 cents.
Iran saved $6 billion by supplying gas to power plants instead of liquid fuel in the past Iranian fiscal year, which ended on March 20.
Hamid Reza Araqi, managing director of the National Iranian Gas Company, said that 50 billion cubic meters of gas were supplied to the country's power plants last year.
The volume of gas which was supplied to the power plants increased by 15 billion cubic meters compared to its preceding year, he noted.
Iran's Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian has said that Iran will boost its electricity generation capacity to 100,000 megawatts by the next five years.
Some of the old and worn-out power plants will be scrapped and the efficiency of other power plants will be improved, he added.
Iran's total electricity generation currently stands at 70,000 megawatts.
Power generation capacity in Iran has grown by seven percent annually during the past 10 years. Iran is currently the biggest electricity producer in the Middle East.