The first gas unit of Mahtab Kavir Power Plant in Zarand County, Kerman Province, has been connected to the national electricity network, director of the power project at the Thermal Power Plants Holding Company said.
“With a capacity of 162 megawatts, the unit has been officially launched after a two-month trial operation,” the Energy Ministry’s news portal Paven also reported Mahmoud Sadeqi as saying.
The second gas unit of the plant will become operational soon and a steam unit will be launched later, he added.
Sadeqi noted that the power station helps supply electricity to south and southeastern regions in the provinces of Kerman, Hormozgan and Sistan-Baluchestan.
It is being constructed on a 52-hectare land, 20 kilometers from Zarand City, near the village of Aliabad. When fully operational, the combined-cycle power plant will have a total capacity of 484 MW.
The construction operation of the power plant is being carried out by domestic experts and the plant’s efficiency will be 48%.
All the main components and equipment of this complex, including turbines, generators, transformers and auxiliary equipment, are manufactured by domestic producers and companies.
Currently, the old thermal power plant in Zarand is the first to have been operating for half a century in southeast Iran and one of the few that uses mazut to generate electricity.
However, due to the low efficiency and lack of fuel, it will soon be phased out and replaced with the new combined-cycle power station.
A combined-cycle power plant uses both gas and steam turbines to produce up to 50% more power from the same fuel than a simple-cycle plant. Waste heat from the gas turbine is routed to the nearby steam turbine to generate electricity.
Energy efficiency of a conventional thermal power station, considered salable energy produced as a percentage of the heating value of the fuel consumed, is typically 30-40%. Considering all the heat produced by gas and steam turbines, their efficiency is limited and governed by thermodynamics.
The average efficiency of domestic power plants is around 37%. Thermal power stations in Iran account for 80% of total power generation of around 85 gigawatts and, therefore, improvement of efficiency is crucial.
According to reports, effective steps have been taken to convert conventional plants into combined-cycle units to raise efficiency and reduce pollution and costs.
