TEHRAN- Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian inaugurated 25 major electricity projects worth 71.81 trillion rials (about $1.709 billion) in five provinces on Tuesday, Tasnim news agency reported.

The projects were put into operation by the minister through video conference in Tehran, Fars, Hormozgan, Bushehr, and Sistan-Baluchestan provinces.

Inauguration of these projects came in the last week of A-B-Iran scheme [the acronyms A and B stand for water and electricity in Persian] under which the Energy Ministry had planned to inaugurate some water and electricity projects across the country every week.

The newly inaugurated projects are related to some combined-cycle power plants, power transmission lines and substations, as well as some gas-fueled power plants and a number of renewable power plants.

Last month, energy minister announced that major energy projects have been inaugurated across the country in recent months.

Speaking in a ceremony on the occasion of the Ten-Day dawn celebrations which marks the victory of the Islamic revolution in 1979, Ardakanian said more than 194.4 trillion rials (about $4.6 billion) has been invested in the mentioned projects.

All the mentioned projects have gone on stream as part of the major program called A-B-Iran which the Energy Ministry has been pursuing seriously.

MA/MA