Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 9
By Umid Niayesh- Trend:
The Iranian Energy Ministry owes 320 trillion rials (some US$10.6 billion based on the official exchange rate of 29,964 rials per dollar) to different sectors, Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Nov. 9.
The debt includes 280 trillion rials in the electricity sector as well as 40 trillion rials in the water and wastewater sector.
The Iranian administration plans to adopt special measures to reduce the debt to 100 trillion rials by March 2016, according to the report.
The ministry's debt is divided according to debts owed to the banking system (70 trillion rials) and to electrical equipment sellers and contractors (140 trillion rials) in the private sector.
During the last fiscal year, which ended on March 21, Iran added 2.87GW to its power generation capacity, while for the current year, production growth of some 2.5GW of power is expected.
Besides wasting electricity in the network, another major problem for Iran's power sector is the low efficiency of the country's power plants, which stands at 37 percent.
Iran has aimed to change all its gas thermal power plants with 31 percent efficiency into combined power plants (CCPPs). CCPPs' share is currently some 25.28 percent of the country's total power generation capacity.
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