TEHRAN – Iran’s Thermal Power Plant Holding (TPPH) plans to construct 10 new steam units with a total capacity of 1,752 megawatts (MW) in the country’s combined cycle power plants by the next summer’s peak consumption period (Iranian calendar’s summer begins on June 22, 2022), a TPPH official announced.

According to TPPH’s Deputy Managing Director for Planning Affairs Hamidreza Azimi, the inauguration of these units, in addition to increasing the country's electricity generation capacity, will boost the efficiency of thermal power plants, IRNA reported.

“With these units going operational, about 2.5 billion cubic meters of fuel will also be saved annually,” Azimi added.

The official noted that the mentioned units are being constructed in Jahrom, Harris, Orumiyeh, Chabahar, Dalahu, Sabalan, Ferdosi, and Assaluyeh power plants.

Over 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 programs to meet the country’s power demand during peak periods and to prevent outages.

Constructing new units in the country’s power plants and also building new power plants for major industries are among the mentioned programs that are being pursued seriously by the ministry in collaboration with other related government entities.

Back in July, Deputy Industry, Mining, and Trade Minister Saeed Zarandi had announced the signing of an MOU with the Energy Ministry for constructing power plants for big industries.

“Since earlier this year, the Industry Ministry, on behalf of the industrial sector, started seeking a permit for building 13 power plants. We held several meetings with Tavanir [Iran's Power Generation, Distribution, and Transmission Company] and the Energy Ministry and proposed to sign a memorandum of understanding with the ministry. We also sent a letter to the Energy Ministry last week to expedite the issuance of the permit,” the official explained.

According to Zarandi, the mentioned power plants are financed by 12 investors from various industrial sectors and will be constructed within 2.5-3 years.

One of the main goals of this program is to provide reliable and sustainable electricity to high-consuming industries and the country’s industrial parks in order to reduce the pressure imposed on the national grid in the industry and mining sector, according to Zarandi.

“If these power plants are built, a significant load will be removed from the national electricity distribution network,” he stressed.

The official further noted that in case of any surplus electricity generation, the industrial units can sell the surplus electricity to the Energy Ministry.

EF/MA