One million smart power meters have been installed across Iran for high-consuming subscribers in the last decade and the program is moving forward, head of the Power Transmission and Distribution Monitoring Office at Iran Power Generation, Distribution and Transmission Company (Tavanir) said.
“Of the total [one million], around 700,000 were installed in the agro and industrial sectors. Households and commercial centers accounted for the rest,” Abdolsaheb Arjoumand was quoted as saying by IRNA.
During a visit to the Mashhad Power Distribution Company on Sunday, Arjoumand said Mashhad accounts for 10% of all installed smart meters.
“There are about 1.6 million electricity subscribers in the pilgrimage city where the power grid extends 17,000 kilometers.”
Thanks to the new gadgets, consumers are informed about daily use and adjust consumption accordingly. Utilities in many developed and developing countries are promoting such meters for economic and environmental reasons, especially to reduce cost and control consumption.
Smart meters in Iran have helped reduce annual water extraction from wells by nearly 30% or 15 billion cubic meters because each meter has a determined extraction level per week and shuts down automatically if and when it reaches the set level.
Smart wells have sensors and valves to allow easy and systematic monitoring by utilities.
Giving a breakdown on power consumption in different industries, the Tavanir official said the farming sector with about 700,000 electricity meters consume about 50% of power or 70,000 megawatts per day.
“The total number of consumers in the household sector is estimated at 30.4 million, of which 650,000 are heavy consumers whose [old] meters will be replaced with new smart meters by next March. They will be charged more than subscribers whose consumption is within [permissible] limits that is around 300 kilowatts” a month.
According to Tavanir, the number of electricity meters nationwide in the household, agro and industrial sectors has grown 12-fold in four decades. There were three million electricity subscribers in 1980. Today that is 38.5 million.
Tavanir data show that household subscribers had the biggest increase (475,000 new meters) reaching 30.4 million, up 7% from 2021 when it stood at 30.2 million.
There were about 680,000 electricity meters in the agro sector last year, which has risen by 3% -- 20,000 new subscribers joined the key sector.
Commercial Sector
The number of consumers in the commercial sector increased 4% after 202,000 new users joined, increasing the number of subscribers in this sector to 5.1 million.
Industrial consumers have increased from 1.7 million to 1.9 million.
To curtail electricity consumption and demand, subscribers are charged as per new tariffs announced in May.
“As per the new scheme, those who consume up to 300 kWh per month are charged as before [1 cents (3,000 rials) per kWh]. If consumption is between 300 kWh and 450 kWh, subscribers are charged 2 cents per kWh. Subscribers whose consumption is between 450 kWh and 600 kWh pay 4 cents per kWh. If consumption exceeds 600 kWh, consumers must pay 7 cents per kWh,” Energy Minister Ali Akbar Mehrabian said.
Industries that consume more than 2 megawatts of electricity per month are charged 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour from March.
As per a new bill passed by the Majlis, electricity tariffs for energy-intensive industries, namely cement factories, oil refineries and petrochemical and steel companies, increased fivefold from March.
Industries account for 40% of Iran’s annual power consumption of 280 billion kilowatts-hour. Electricity demand peaked in Iran at 69 gigawatts on July 31 when the sweltering heat struck most regions and temperatures in some southern regions rose to 50 degrees.
Power consumption in Iran grows by 5-6% a year, but infrastructure expansion plans have been undermined by financial constraints, management issues and the dominance of energy subsidies.
