TEHRAN – Iran’s thermal power plants’ electricity generation capacity has reached 73,000 megawatts (MW), an official with the country’s Thermal Power Plants Holding Company (TPPH) announced.

Mohammad Ramezani, the head of the company’s projects development department, said there are currently 604 thermal units active in 134 power plants across the country, IRIB reported on Saturday.

Mentioning the inauguration of a thermal power plant unit in Kerman Province, central Iran, Ramezani said with the inauguration of the mentioned unit the total capacity of thermal power plants operated by the private sector has exceeded 49,000 MW.

According to the official, the private sector currently operates 396 power plants that account for 68 percent of the electricity generated by all thermal power plants in the country.

“Currently, the capacity of the country's power plants, including thermal, hydroelectric, renewable, diesel, small-scale and nuclear, has reached about 90,000 megawatts, of which 81 percent is related to thermal power plants,” the official said.

He noted that combined cycle units with a capacity of 34,539 MW, gas units with a capacity of 22,558 MW, and steam units with a capacity of 15,829 MW constitute the country's thermal power plants.

Increasing the country’s power generation capacity and preventing blackouts during peak consumption periods have been among the Energy Ministry’s top priorities since the current government administration took office in August 2021.

Earlier this year, Energy Minister Ali-Akbar Mehrabian announced that his ministry was planning to boost the country’s power generation capacity by 35,000 MW over the next four years.

The mentioned figure would be achieved through the construction of thermal power plants with 15,000 MW of capacity, renewable power plants with a capacity of 10,000 MW by the public and private sectors, and the construction of new power plants with 10,000 megawatts capacity by large industries, according to the minister.

Over the past decade, constant temperature rising and the significant decrease in 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.

EF/MA