Tehran, Iran, Jan. 13
By Kamyar Eghbal – Trend:
Iran generated about 10,000 megawatt (MW) of surplus electricity worth of $10 billion over the past summer, an energy official told Trend.
Vice-President of Iran's power industry syndicate, Payam Bagheri, has said that the country’s capacity for power generation reached 54,000 megawatts last summer of which about 32,000 megawatts was used for domestic consumption in peak demand, and about 10,000 megawatts were consumed in other cases such as overhaul of power plants.
Saying that the country generated 10,000 megawatts of net surplus electricity in the summer, he added that the value of the surplus electricity according to the current prices totals $10 billion.
Speaking about Syria, Lebanon and some Persian Gulf countries that are interested in importing electricity from Iran, he added that Iran enjoys an opportunity for exporting its surplus power.
“Iran's advantage in exchanging electricity with the northern neighbor countries is that their peak consumption falls in winter and our peak demand is in summer so we can easily exchange with our northern neighbors,” he said.
The official further touched upon the country’s total exports which stand below 1,300 megawatts, urging for the construction of new power stations at the frontier areas of the country as the Islamic Republic has a potential chance for providing neighboring countries with electricity.
“Pakistan’s demand for importing electricity from Iran was 3,000 megawatts but the Islamic Republic managed to supply only 100 MW per year to this country,” he said.
The latest statistics by Iran’s Energy Ministry shows that the country’s power plants generated over 251.95 TWh (terawatt-hours) of electricity since the beginning of the current Iranian fiscal year (March 21) till Dec. 29.
In this period Iran’s electricity export increased by 10 percent up to 6.55 TWh. Meanwhile, the country imported 3.16 TWh of electricity, registering a 9-percent fall compared to the same period of the preceding year.
Iran plans to increase its nominal electric generation capacity to 80,000 MW by summer 2018, and 100,000 by 2025, 1,000 of which should be produced from solar energy.