2nd Steam Unit at Ferdowsi Power Plant Set for Summer Launch

The second steam unit of Ferdowsi Combined Cycle Power Plant in Mashhad, Khorasan Razavi Province, will come on stream in summer, managing director of the plant said.
The construction of the second steam unit with a capacity of 160 megawatts is near completion and the third steam unit will become operational next summer, the Energy Ministry’s news portal Paven also quoted Fariborz Motameni as saying.
“Upon the completion of all units, Ferdowsi Power Plant will have a total capacity of 1,434 MW, including six gas units of 159 MW and three steam units of 160 MW,” he said.
“In gas power plants, the heat from gas units is released to the outside environment from the exhaust of units with a temperature of 540 to 600 degrees centigrade which, in addition to wasting energy, increases the emission of greenhouse gases. Conducting heat to the steam sector will help the environment and generate electrical energy.”
Emphasizing that the three steam units of the plant will prevent the emission of 2.4 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, Motameni said achieving a 50% saving of 870 million liters of liquid fuel per year for the entire steam sector and reducing environmental pollution are among the goals of the project.
“The steam units are estimated to cost $400 million, 800 people are active in the construction phase and 1,500 are indirectly involved in the project,” he said.
The first steam unit of the plant was launched in September 2020, as the first step to convert the conventional thermal station into a more efficient combined cycle plant.
The gas section, which came on stream a decade ago, consumes 2.1 billion cubic meters of gas per year. The upgraded plant's natural gas consumption should decline by an estimated 1.1 bcm.

Increasing Efficiency

The project to convert the plant’s system into combined cycle is aimed at raising efficiency by 17%. The conventional plant’s efficiency was 33% and the shift to combined cycle will raise it to 56%.
Energy efficiency of a conventional thermal power station, as a percentage of the heating value of the fuel is consumed, is typically 33% to 48%.
Over 95% of the equipment used in the project to convert the thermal power plant into a combined cycle system are produced domestically.
Iran’s top engineering and energy enterprise, MAPNA Group, is the contractor of the project. With 41 subsidiary companies, MAPNA produces 60 products and offers 85 types of services to the power industry alone. About 50% of power are used by MAPNA. It has implemented more than 100 major energy projects worth over $30 billion in 30 years.
With an installed power production capacity of about 86,000 MW, Iran meets almost 80% of its electricity demand from aging thermal plants that outlived their usefulness. Converting conventional plants to combined cycle units is a government priority.
A combined cycle power plant produces up to 50% more electricity from the same fuel than a traditional simple cycle power plant. This is because waste heat from a gas turbine is rerouted to the nearby steam turbine to generate power.
Located 25 km from Mashhad, the power plant is being developed over 60 hectares. Due to the growing electricity demand of Khorasan Razavi Province and neighboring provinces, the development project of turning the conventional thermal power plant into a combined cycle plant with higher output and efficiency is of great importance.