Tehran, Iran, November 10
By Mehdi Sepahvand -- Trend:
Iran plans to remove from service those power plants with yield rates under 20 percent, the country's Deputy Minister of Energy Hooshang Falahatian said.
He noted that during the past few years, attempts have been made to create combined-cycle power plants, adding that, in the meantime, no steam power plant has been added to the country's electricity production system, IRNA reported November 9.
The average yield of Iranian power plants is 37 percent. There is one power plant operating at below 20 percent efficiency, while the country is using five power plants with yields of 20 to 22 percent.
He said Iran is hoping to attract foreign cooperation to improve its power production sector, noting that last year's electricity industry exhibition in Tehran saw a new wave of foreign companies attending the event.
Falahatian also said Iran is in talks with a European company to produce Class-F gas turbines.
Right now, Iran is domestically producing Class-E gas turbines. Class-F turbines will yield an output of over 50 percent.
The official told investors that if they fund combined-cycle projects, the government will pay them with the equivalent amount of fuel that the new power plants save, compared to older power plants.
He noted that the ministry plans to convert most of the country's power plants to the combined-cycle model, hoping to achieve a yield of 45 percent.
According to an October 30 report by TAVANIR, the Iranian company responsible for production, transmission, and distribution of electricity, the nominal power production capacity of power plants in Iran is: steam 21.46 percent, gas 34.95 percent, combined-cycle 25.08 percent, hydroelectric 15.2 percent, atomic 1.38 percent, DG and CHP 1.02 percent, renewable energy 0.31 percent, and diesel 0.6 percent. The total nominal capacity was, accordingly, 73,744 megawatts.
In the meantime, the total actual output reached 6,423 million kilowatt hours of electricity.
According to the report, the fuel consumed in power plants in the eight months since the start of the current Iranian fiscal year on March 21 was 40,671 million cubic meters of gas, 2,533 million liters of gas oil, and 3,846 million cubic meters of fuel oil.