Azerbaijan, Baku, Mar.10/ Trend F.Milad/
Iran has given necessary permissions to the private sector to construct 80 new power plants, Iranian Energy Minister Majid Namjou said on Sunday.
Iran plans to privatize 26 power plants in near future, the Mehr News agency quoted Namjou as saying.
Iran has privatized 18 power plants with total production capacity of 16,000 MW in the past four year, he said.
Iran's installed power generation capacity is currently about 67 gigawatts (GW).
Tehran seeks to become a major regional exporter of electricity and has attracted more than $1.1 billion in investments for the construction of three new powerplants.
The Energy Ministry plans to increase the electricity generation capacity by 5GW this calendar year, which ends on March 20, 2013. Tehran produced 240.183.9 gigawatt hours of electricity from the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year until March 5, 2013.
The figure shows 5.5 per cent increase compared to the same period last year, the IRIB News Agency reported. Hydroelectric power plants accounted for 11,687.1 gigawatts of the mentioned amount, while thermal plants' share was about 228,496.8 gigawatts.
Iran exported 10.166 gigawatt hours of electricity to neighboring countries from the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20) until February 19.
The amount shows 30.3 per cent increase in comparison to the same period previous year, the IRIB News Agency reported.
Iran currently trades power with Turkey, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
