Speaking in a meeting with Minister of Energy Reza Ardakanian, and the ministry’s deputies and managers on Monday, President Hassan Rouhani attached great significance to the country’s ‘electricity diplomacy’ and power export to regional and neighboring countries, saying “it is important to be able to easily connect to electricity networks in Asia and Europe.”
Rouhani said the 24-hour blackout in London pushed England to the edge of collapse, saying while power outage may occur in any country, Iran has had the fortune to be spared of an incident on such a severe scale in the last 15 years.
The president then noted the good investments made in the electricity sector during his time in office, adding “we have had over 9,000MW increase in power production capacity, and the capacity of installed power plants has reached from 70,000MW to over 80,000MW.”
He added that 12,0000MW capacity will be added to the country’s power grid by March.
Elsewhere, the president maintained that his government’s measures for reviving Lake Urmia has saved 14 million Iranian people, saying if the lake continued to dry up, the dust storms would have undermined agriculture in Iran’s northwest region and caused serious problems for the people.
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