TEHRAN Energy Minister Habibollah Bitaraf said here yesterday that major indexes of Iranian power industry show the the main consumers of electric energy are all urban population and 97 percent of villages with more than 20 families. Bitaraf said at the inaugural ceremony of the 13th international power seminar, which was attended by experts of the power industry and academics that the number of power subscribers increased to 13.55 million last year from 8.8 million in 1988. The minister continued to say that considering the role of industry in economic, cultural and social development, the power industry can be considered as one of the main levers for development.

He said that 35.8 percent of the country's energy output was consumed last year by household subscribers and the rest by industry and agriculture sectors. A six percent growth was registered in per capita energy consumption in the country and waste of energy dropped by 1.2 percent in the said period. The Iranian minister continued that 92,210,000,000 kilowatts/hour of electricity were generated in the country last year and 87,718,000,000 kilowatts/hour of electric energy were supplied to the national power networks.

The installed power generation capacity of the power plants run by the energy ministry rose to 23,793 megawatts in the first half of the year (starting March 21), according to Bitaraf. Gross growth rate of energy production in the 1988-1997 period stood at 7.4 percent annually, the minister said.