TEHRAN – Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian says the country’s power generation capacity is going to be increased by 3000 megawatts (MW) by the end of the current calendar year (March 19, 2020).

Speaking on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Ardakanian noted that in the remaining three months of the current Iranian calendar year nine major projects are planned to be inaugurated in different provinces across the country.

According to the official, the mentioned projects will be inaugurated as a part of a major program called “A B Iran” [the acronyms A and B stand for water, electricity in Persian”, in which 10 trillion rials (over $238 million) of projects will be inaugurated in each of the country’s provinces, on average.   

Based on the “A B Iran” program, Energy Ministry plans to inaugurate some water, electricity projects across the country every week.

Ardakanian further mentioned the ministry’s allocated budget for the next calendar year, saying that 90 trillion rials (about $2.14 billion) has been provisioned for the energy ministry in the next year’s budget bill, which indicates an increase in the water sector.

The official noted that the ministry is mostly relying on its internal incomes (water and electricity revenues) and expressed hope that most of the ministry’s projects scheduled for the next two years will become operational within their timelines.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Ardakanian said 227 major water and electricity projects worth 330 trillion rials (about $7.8 billion) are expected to be inaugurated based on the A B Iran scheme, adding that we have requested Russia for a $5 billion loan, of which so far $2.2 billion has been paid and used to fund such projects.

He further noted that the new $2.8 billion will be allocated for funding four major projects including manufacturing of 2,000 passenger wagons for the country’s subways and also construction of a railway between the southeastern provinces of Sistan-Baluchestan and eastern province of South Khorasan, renovation of Ahvaz power plant in southwestern Province of Khuzestan and construction of a hydro-electric power plant in western Iran.

Back in November, Ardakanian headed a delegation to visit Moscow in order to follow up on the issue of Russia’s allocation of $5 billion of loan for implementation of development projects in Iran.

He met with his Russian counterpart Alexander Novak in Moscow on November 21 and stressed expansion of ties in all areas.

EF/MA