Iran’s electricity imports Up by 1.8 times
Spokesman for Electricity Industry Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi says this year the import of electricity will be 1.8 times more than last year and the country imports electricity from Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.
Rajabi said that the country has imported normally 400 to 500 megawatts of electricity in the past year but this year the figure has reached 650 megawatts and it will definitely hit 700 megawatts which is almost 1.8 times more than last year.
He admitted that power industry is experiencing continuous outages and this may continue for some time.
He blamed the decrease in the rainfalls as the major factor behind electricity shortage and the outages, adding that sanctions and lack of developing the power plantss are the other factors behind the shortage of the electricity in the country.
He said the hydro-power plants produced some 10,000 megawatts of electricity last year and currently the country should not consume more than 4000 megawatts of electricity on average produced by the hydro-power plants in order to pass the upcoming heat of the summer.
Rajabi noted that this year the country will face the shortage of 3000 megawatts of electricity and it needs the consumption management by subscribers to get past of this critical stage.
He said due to the decrease in the rainfalls and shortage of electricity, the government has decided to import electricity from Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan as the electricity from Azerbaijan has started since June 10 and currently 73 megawatts of electricity.
He noted that the country imports some 140 megawatts of electricity from Turkmenistan to meet the national demands.
According to a research conducted by Iran’s chamber of commerce, Iran ranks 16th in terms of electricity production and 18th in terms of electricity consumption.
The research claims electricity is the major challenge for most of businesses in the country and recent outages have caused damages to many businesses and industries. This has made Iran’s place in the global business climate rankings fall.
The national electricity industry needs major investment in building power stations as well as wise consumption of electricity by the public.
A couple of weeks ago Rajabi Mashhadi had said the country will import 140 megawatts (MW) of electricity from Turkmenistan in a bid to meet domestic power need.
Emphasizing the ministry’s efforts for meeting the country’s electricity requirement, he said that 140 MW of electricity will be imported from Turkmenistan at the first stage, that will meet the power need of some part of Khorasan region (northeastern Iran).
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