TEHRAN - With three new power plant units going operational this week, the country’s power generation capacity is going to be increased by 350 megawatts (MW), Tasnim reported on Sunday, quoting an energy official as saying.

According to Mohsen Tarztalab, the head of Iran’s Thermal Power Plants Holding Company (TPPH), the mentioned units are going to be launched in the western province of Kermanshah.
Iran’s nominal electricity generation capacity reached 80,509 megawatts (80.509 gigawatts) in early May.
The added capacity was supplied from the newly operational distributed generation power plants, hydroelectric power plants, as well as renewable plants, according to the portal of Iranian Energy Ministry (known as PAVEN).
With the new 350 MW capacity added, the country’s electricity generation capacity will rise by 850 MW compared to the last year (ended on March 20) in which the total power generation capacity stood at 80,000 MW.
Currently, with a total generation capacity of 25,083 MW, combined cycle power plants hold the biggest share (31.2 percent) of the country’s total power generation capacity, followed by gas power plants accounting for 29.9 percent.
The share of hydroelectric power plants is 19.87 percent while hydroelectric plants generate 14.8 percent of the country’s total electricity, the share of dispersed generation units is 1.5 percent and finally the renewable power plants account only for 0.79 percent of Iran’s total power generation capacity.
In May, the Energy Ministry announced that it plans to inaugurate 22 new units with a total capacity of 3,933 MW in the current [Iranian calendar] year along with upgrading and increasing the efficiency of existing power plants to add another 461 MW of new capacity.
EF/MG