Iran’s capacity of electricity generation has increased to 60,000 megawatts by the inauguration of a new gas unit in Semnan’s combined cycle power plant in northern part of the country.

“The second gas unit of Semnan power plant with an output of 162 megawatts of electricity was connected to Iran’s national electricity grid on Saturday,” ISNA reported.
The steam unit of the plant, with a capacity of 160 megawatts of electricity, will go on stream in the near future, the report added.
So far, over $160 million have been invested for constructing the two gas units in the power plant, which generates 484 megawatts of electricity.
Iran’s Energy Ministry announced that the country’s power exports topped 4,918 megawatts between March 21 and December 28 of last year, which indicates a 6 percent rise compared with the corresponding period of 2009.
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 currently has electricity exchange with Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Pakistan, the Republic of Nakhjavan, Turkey and Turkmenistan.
In December, the Iranian Energy Ministry announced that the country’s electricity exports to neighboring states climbed by more than 6 percent while its imports soared up by over 40 percent.
Iran’s exchange of electricity transmission with the countries reached 1,341 megawatts in late December. The top exporter was Armenia with 237 megawatts, and the top importer of Iranian electricity was Iraq with 650 megawatts.
Iran, which seeks to become a major regional exporter of electricity, has attracted more than $1.1 billion in investments to build three new power plants.
(Source: Press TV)