TEHRAN – Iranian Deputy Energy Minister Houshang Falahatian said that 4000 megawatts (MW) capacity of new power plants is scheduled to be added to the country’s electricity network during the current Iranian calendar year (March 21, 2017- March 20, 2018), Fars news agency reported on Friday.

Iran increased its electricity generation capacity by 2.199 gigawatts (GW), boosting it to 76.302GW, in the past Iranian calendar year 1395, which ended on March 20, according to a report by Iran Power Grid Management Company.

“Adding the new capacity will increase the country’s total power generation capacity to over 80,000MW by the end of the current fiscal,” Falahatian said.

The official also noted that over the past Iranian calendar year the Energy Ministry attracted more than $6 billion of investment in this sector.

“We can achieve even more than what is planned, the expected new capacity installation for the last year was 1,800MW and the ministry managed to put 2,200MW capacity of new power plants online, 400MW more than the planned figure,” he added.

Iran currently ranks the first in the region and 14th in the world in terms of electricity generation capacity.

In January 2016, Falahatian said that over 95 percent of the country’s power transmission equipment are domestically built, adding that Iran is also self-sufficient in manufacturing its power distribution equipment.

EF/MA