Speaking at the Oil and Energy Conference in Tehran on Tuesday morning, Houshang Falahatian explained investment opportunities for the post-sanction period and said, “currently, Iran’s power generation capacity has reached 74 thousand megawatts and the construction of new power plants has been put on the agenda.”
Noting that of the total production capacity, 11 thousand megawatts have been dedicated to hydroelectric and renewable electricity production capacities, deputy energy minister asserted “currently, five percent of the country’s total energy consumption is produced by renewable energy resources.”
Falahatian referred to the plans for implementing new generation of gas turbines with an efficiency of over 60 percent and said, “by doing so, a significant amount of liquid fuel and natural gas consumed by power plants will be saved.”
The official further announced an annual five thousand megawatt increase in Iran’s power plant capacity by implementation of a five-year plan and noted, “accordingly, the increased share of electricity by renewable and clean energies will play a major role in reducing fuel and fossil fuel consumption.”
Falahatian deemed renewal of steam power plants and increasing the efficiency of existing plants as two most important investment opportunities in Iran’s energy industry; “the main investment projects in Iran include creation of new GIS stations, construction of high-voltage transmission lines, providing access to technology of new solar power plants as well as construction of turbines with high efficiencies,” he asserted.
He referred to reduced dependence on fossil fuel fossil consumption as one of the main objectives of Iran’s power industry and added that “this will bring about efficient use of fossil fuels in the value chain as well as preservation of the environment.”
At the end of his remarks, Falahatian expressed Energy Ministry’s readiness to carry out projects for knowledge tranfer and localization of new technologies with participation of research companies in the post-sanction era; “currently, vast supply of electricity and low price of this clean energy has caused serious problems for improvement of the country’s power industry."
HA/2945289