TEHRAN – Iranian Energy Ministry has managed to save 3,876 megawatts (MW) of electricity in the previous calendar year (ended on March 19) by implementing consumption management programs, IRNA reported, quoting an official with Iran’s Power Generation and Distribution Company (known as Tavanir).

Cooperation with the various sectors resulted in reducing the consumption by 3,876 MW which is equal to the output of five 1000MW-capacity power plants, Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi said.

According to the official, Energy Ministry signed memorandums of understanding with 135,000 industrial, agricultural, and domestic subscribers under the framework of consumption management programs, last year, to pass the summer consumption peak without outages.

Last year, 3.5 trillion rials (about $83.3 million) were paid to the subscribers cooperating in the consumption management program in the form of incentives and relief packages, however, this figure is only five percent of what should have been paid to power plants to buy the said 3,876 MW, he said.

Back in January, Tavanir head had said that Energy Ministry managed to prevent the consumption of 70 trillion rials (about $1.66 billion) worth of electricity during the summer peak period by implementing consumption management programs.

“Implementation of this program allowed us to pass the summer without any power outages,” the official said in a meeting of directors of the Energy Ministry subsidiaries’ public relations departments.

He noted that Iran’s electricity network has 100 percent coverage across the country, adding that this is an indication of the Iranian electricity industry’s leadership in the region and the world.

In the past decade, constant temperature rising and the significant decrease of rainfalls across Iran have put the country in a hard situation regarding electricity supply during peak consumption periods.

In this regard, the Energy Ministry has been following new strategies in recent years to manage the consumption and lessen the electricity losses in the national grid.

EF/MA