TEHRAN- Iranian Energy Ministry has announced that reduction of electricity losses in the national power grid has saved the country €240m in the past Iranian calendar year (ended on March 19), the ministry’s news portal, Paven, published.

The mentioned saved amount has been allocated to the construction of new power plants throughout the country.

Through different measures taken by the Energy Ministry, the national grid experienced a single-digit figure (9.76 percent) of electricity losses in the past year, which was unprecedented.

The seven-percent annual decline also economized on 500 million cubic meters of gas consumption in the power plants and prevented from the emission of one million tons of carbon dioxide.

Electricity losses in Iran’s power grid are currently lower than that of many countries like Brazil, Turkey, Mexico, Hungary, Croatia, India, and Pakistan.

The country is seriously determined to reduce the losses more in the current and next years.

Last month, an official with Iran’s Power Generation and Distribution Company (known as TAVANIR) announced that Energy Ministry managed to save 3,876 megawatts (MW) of electricity in the previous calendar year by implementing consumption management programs.

Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi said 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.

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.

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.

MA/MA