Tehran, Iran, May 1
By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:
The current Iranian fiscal year's national budget has envisioned 100 trillion rials (about $3.5 billion) to go into turning gas power plants into combined cycle power plants, Alireza Daemi, deputy minister of energy in planning and economic affairs said.
He pointed out that the current gas power plants suffer very low performance and by turning them into combined cycle facilities the performance will be improved, SHANA news agency reported May 1.
The official further stated that for the current Iranian fiscal year (started March 21), a budget of 11 trillion rials ($380 million) is given to the energy sector to go into 37 water/electricity projects and 12 power plants. The sum comes with an increase of 18 percent compared to that of the previous year.
According to an April 7 report, released on April 6, Iran has increased 2.871 GW power generation capacity, including about 1.6-GW gas power plants, a 0.64-GW combined cycle power plant as well as a 0.52-GW hydroelectric power plant. However the actual power generation level increased by only 1.98 GW.
Iran has aimed to change all of gas thermal power plants into combined power plants (CCPP), which shares about 25.28 percent of the country's total power generation capacity. The efficiency of thermal power plants (excluding (CCPP) in Iran is about 31 percent while CCPPs' is 45 percent.
Edited by CN
Mehdi Sepahvand is Trend Agency's journalist in Iran, follow him on Twitter: @mehdisepahvand
