TEHRAN – Iranian Energy Ministry’s program for rewarding efficient electricity subscribers with 100 percent discount on their bills is expected to reduce the country’s electricity consumption by 10 percent, IRNA reported.

This program called “power of hope”, was unveiled by the Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian in mid-August under the framework of the A-B-Iran program.

"This program will be implemented to both reward low-consuming subscribers and to encourage others to consume less and it is expected to reduce power consumption by 10 percent,” Ardakanian said in a press conference on the occasion of the Government Week (August 23-29).

The minister noted that according to a cabinet decision, all the subscribers that cooperated well with the Energy Ministry’s consumption management programs this summer are to be awarded.

"To do so, home subscribers were divided into three categories, which include low-consumers, normal-consumers, and high-consumers," he said.

He noted that two programs have been prepared for high-consuming subscribers so that by implementing these plans, these subscribers would also join the low-consumer group.

The official described the first program as a training course to teach consumption management methods with the help of knowledge-based companies and start-ups, and said: "Start-up companies will be formed in this field and will help us optimize the consumption of high-consuming subscribers by providing simple solutions."

The second plan is to install solar panels on the roofs of high-consuming subscribers' houses so that such subscribers would meet their electricity needs by installing these PV stations, Ardakanian explained.

Managing electricity consumption by various sectors including households, agriculture, and industry, and reducing the consumption of fossil fuels used by power plants has become one of the major priorities for the government in recent years.

Earlier, the Energy Ministry Spokesman for the electricity sector Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi had told Tehran Times that the ministry’s specialists and experts defined different packages for different sectors to manage the country’s electricity consumption.

Rajabi Mashhadi said that since the households account for the majority of the electricity consumption, the main part of the Energy Ministry’s program was focused on encouraging the households in metropolitan areas like Tehran to reduce their consumption in peak hours.

EF/MA