Mohammad Ramezani, the acting head of the company’s projects development department, also said that private sector accounts for 68 percent of the electricity generated by the thermal power plants.

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

To this end, the ministry had put it on the agenda to increase the capacity of thermal power plants by 5,300 MW by the current Iranian calendar year’s summer time peak consumption period (starting on June 22).

Back in August 2021, 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 the thermal power plants with 15,000 MW of capacity, and renewable power plants with the capacity of 10,000 MW by the public and private sectors, as well as the construction of new power plants with 10,000 megawatts capacity by large industries.

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.

The Islamic Republic’s total power generation capacity currently stands at about 85,500 gigawatts most of which is supplied by thermal power plants.

Currently, combined cycle power plants account for the biggest share of the country’s total power generation capacity followed by gas power plants.

The post Thermal power plants’ generation capacity hits 72,000 MW appeared first on Iran News Daily.

According to Omid Abdolmaleki, the director of TPPH’s Production Planning and Operation Office, of the mentioned figure, 181 billion kWh was the share of combined cycle units, 84 billion kWh was the share of steam units, and 59 billion kWh was generated by gas units, IRNA reported.

The official noted that a total of 359 billion kWh of electricity was generated by all the power plants across the country (thermal, hydro, nuclear, and renewable) in the previous year, of which the share of thermal power plants (steam, gas, combined cycle) was more than 324 billion kWh.

Thermal power plants accounted for over 91 percent of the country’s total power generation in the previous year, according to Abdolmaleki.

He mentioned the inauguration of several steam units in the country’s thermal power plants in the previous year, saying: “With the inauguration of the steam units of Jahrom, Harris, Urmia, and Chabahar power plants, we witnessed an output increase in combined cycle power plants which are environmentally friendly power generating units.”

According to Abdolmaleki, turning gas power plants into combined cycle ones is one of the most efficient ways to improve the efficiency of the country’s electricity network, which is very effective not only for the electricity industry but also for preserving the environment and saving fuel.

“By placing a 160-megawatt steam turbine along with two 159-megawatt gas turbines and forming a complete combined cycle block, the power plant’s efficiency increases from 34 percent to nearly 50 percent without the need for additional fuel and only by using the heat recycled in the first cycle of power generation,” he explained.

In 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.

Earlier this month, Iranian Energy Minister Ali-Akbar Mehrabian said the country’s electricity generation capacity was going to increase by 6,000 megawatts (MW) by the end of spring (June 22) in order to meet the summer’s peak demand.

Mehrabian noted that 4,500 MW of the mentioned figure will be provided through developing the country’s thermal power plants and another 1,000 MW will also be provided by implementing overhaul operations, while the other 500 MW is going to be supplied by new renewable power plants.

The post Thermal power plants’ annual output up 8% appeared first on Iran News Daily.

“The efficiency of the country’s thermal power plants improved by over 0.4 percent from the 38.56 percent in the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20) to reach 39 percent,” Mohsen Tarztalab announced.

According to Tarztalab, the mentioned improvement has decreased the fuel consumption of the country’s power plants by 846 million cubic meters in the mentioned year.

The TPPH head emphasized that the 0.4-percent increase in the efficiency of power plants has resulted in more than one percent increase in annual fuel saving.

“Annual fuel savings add value and preserve national capital, so measures to increase the power plants efficiency are among the most important goals of the company,” he stressed.

Tarztalab underlined the implementation of the annual overhaul program at the country’s power plants as one of the determining factors in achieving the mentioned efficiency ratio and added: “Technical issues and problems that occur during operation can affect the power plants’ efficiency; such issues are resolved during the implementation of the annual overhaul program to prevent the decline in the power plants’ efficiency”, he stated.

The official also stressed the significant impact of installing steam units in the country’s gas power plants on improving their efficiency and said: “The efficiency of large gas power plants is 31 percent on average; this figure can be increased to more than 45 percent by turning them into combined cycle plants.”

In this regard, last year, a total of 1,936 megawatts (MW) capacity of combined cycle power plants joined the country’s national electricity network, he added.

Back in October 2018, Tarztalab had unveiled plans for an increase in the efficiency of the country’s power plants up to 40 percent in three years.

According to the official, the efficiency improvement program was provisioned following a development initiative foreseen in the country’s Sixth Five-Year National Development Plan (2016-2021), based on which the average efficiency of the country’s power plants was to increase by 2.1 percent.

According to the sixth development plan, new power plants in Iran should operate with an efficiency of at least 55 percent.

Currently, with a total generation capacity of 25,083 MW (31.2 percent) combined cycle power plants account for the biggest share in the country’s total power generation capacity followed by gas power plants generating 29.9 percent.

The post Efficiency of Iran’s thermal power plants reaches new record high appeared first on Iran News Daily.

Over two third of Iran’s thermal power plants are owned and operated by the country’s private sector.

According to the data published on Paven, private owners are currently generating nearly 67 percent of Iran’s thermal power.

Based on the report, the government was seeking to further give up its shares in the operation and ownership of thermal power plants which account for more than 92 percent of Iran’s annual electricity generation.

The country’s thermal power plants hit a new record last year by generating some 287 billion megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity.

According to Paven, currently more than 80 percent of the country’s electricity output comes from thermal power plants across the country.

Earlier this week, IRNA reported that the nominal capacity of electricity generation at Iranian power plants has reached 84,795 megawatts [84.795 gigawatts (GW)].

Iran’s total power generation capacity stood at 80,000 MW in the past Iranian calendar year 1397 (March 2018-March 2019), up from the 78,484 MW of its preceding year.

According to a report by Tasnim news agency, the country’s power generation capacity is set to reach 85,695 MW by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 2020).

In early May, the energy ministry announced that the government plans to inaugurate 22 new power plant units with a total capacity of 3,933 MW in the current Iranian year along with upgrading and increasing the efficiency of existing power plants to add another 461 MW of new capacity.

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