The parliament has ratified an article that obliges the Energy Ministry to provide electricity subscribers with smart meters.
According to the decision taken on Monday, high-consuming subscribers enjoy priority, ISNA reported.
While there are over 38 million electricity consumers in Iran, only 1 million smart electricity meters have been installed.
Of the total number, around 700,000 meters were installed in the agro and industrial sectors. Households and commercial centers accounted for the rest.
The farming sector consumes about 50% of Iran’s power generation at about 60,000 megawatts per day.
The total number of consumers in the household sector is estimated to be around 30.4 million, of which 650,000 are heavy consumers whose meters will be converted to smart ones so that they can be charged more than subscribers who use within [permissible] limits.
Thanks to the new gadgets, consumers are informed about daily use and adjust consumption. Utilities in many developed and developing countries are promoting such meters for economic and environmental reasons, especially to reduce cost and consumption.
Smart meters have helped reduce annual water extraction from the wells by 30% or 15 billion cubic meters because each meter has a determined extraction level per week and it will shut down automatically the moment it reaches that level.
Smart wells have sensors and valves installed downhole to allow easy and systematic monitoring.
The injudicious use and waste of groundwater from legal and illegal wells have emerged as a major problem in Iran's struggle against the water crisis that has gotten worse over the past half century, as precipitation declines and consumption rises.
Consumption Pattern
To curtail electricity consumption and ease power demand, subscribers are charged as per the new scheme started six months ago.
As per the new scheme, those who consume up to 300 kWh per month are charged as much as before. However, for the consumption of 300 kWh to 450 kWh, subscribers are charged 6,000 rials [3 cents] per kWh. Subscribers whose consumption level stands between 450 kWh and 600 kWh are levied at a rate of 5 cents per kWh. If consumption exceeds 600 kWh, consumers need to pay 7 cents per kWh.
All industrial units that consume more than 2 megawatts of electricity per month have been charged 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour since March 2022.
As per the new bill passed by the parliament, electricity tariffs for energy-intensive industries, namely cement factories, oil refineries and petrochemical and steel companies, increased fivefold as of March.
Industries account for 40% of Iran’s annual power consumption of 280 billion kilowatts-hour.
Iran has access to huge hydrocarbon resources and the best strategy to take advantage of them is to convert fossil fuel energy to electricity to not only meet domestic needs but also generate revenue via export.
