TEHRAN - Iran Fuel Conservation Company (IFCC) and the country’s Power Generation and Distribution Company (known as TAVANIR) singed a deal worth $1.2 billion for replacing diesel water pumps in 75,000 agricultural wells with electric ones, Shana reported.

Speaking in the signing ceremony on Thursday, Deputy Oil Minister for planning Houshang Falahatian said that the ministry plans to electrify 20,000 agricultural wells every year during the next four years.

According to the official, complete implementation of this project is going to save at least 750 million liters of fuel oil every year.

Based on a directive by the country’s economic council, a total of $1.65 billion has been allocated for electrifying 100,000 agricultural wells across the country, which when fully implemented, will remove at least one billion liters of fossil oil from the consumption cycle. 

According to data released by the Iranian Water Resources Management Company, there are currently about 220,000 agricultural wells across the country, half of which are planned to be electrified based on the economic council directive.

Iranian Energy Ministry is also following a national smart metering program (known as FAHAM) for equipping the country’s agricultural wells with smart electricity meters.

Back in May, Mohammad-Ali Validad, the deputy director of FAHAM announced that the number of wells equipped with smart meters has reached 56,000 across the country.

In March 2009 implementation of FAHAM was placed on the agenda of Iranian government and Energy Ministry.

EF/MA