The electricity industry in facing challenges including severe shortage of funds, lack of investment to build new facilities, worn-out equipment such as transformers and annual increase in power consumption, the Energy Ministry’s spokesman for the power department said Tuesday.
Speaking at the 6th International Transformer Conference and Exhibition, December 10-11 in Tehran, Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi said: “If the current trend persists we may be forced to import electricity in 15 years,” ISNA quoted him as saying.
But this can be avoided by investing in renewable power and with concerted efforts to reduce power consumption, he added.
In Iran, thermal power plants comprise 80% of the total power capacity of 83 GW and renewables comprise a poor 1%.
In summer when the temperature and consumption rise drastically, transformers are also under pressure, Rajabi Mashhadi noted.
A transformer is a passive electrical device that transfers electrical energy from one electrical circuit to one or more circuits.
Transformers are used for increasing or decreasing alternating voltages in electric power applications, and for coupling the stages of signal processing circuits.
Organized by the Energy Ministry and Iran Transformer Magazine, ITCE is the most important local event of the transformer industry. More than 500 experts from Iran and other countries participated to learn more about the developments in the industry and share knowledge.
Companies active in the industry participated and displayed their goods and services.
Ageing Transformers
Also speaking at the event was the executive secretary of the ITCE, who said the error rate in the transformer network of Iran is two and a half times that of the world.
“While the error rate in the global transformer network is 0.5%, in our country it is over 1.5%. We must work harder to raise our efficiency,” Arash Aghaeifar was quoted as saying by ISNA.
He referred to the ageing machines as another challenge for the transformer industry.
“There are now 725 distribution transformers and 5,000 power transformers in the network, which are rapidly aging,” Aghaeifar warned.
The cost of installing new transformers has risen dramatically and has resulted in an aging fleet because funding is scarce due to the difficult economic conditions.
“Appropriate solutions have been developed in many countries to improve the life expectancy of transformers, and we are working to find ways to do likewise with the help of academia and industry stakeholders,” he added.
Normal or average life expectancy of a transformer is about 20 to 30 years, though some in Japan have been in service for more than 50 years.
As the world’s population swells, the need for power is increasing rapidly. According to the International Energy Agency, global energy demand will grow by 30% between now and 2040, with electricity consumption accounting for 40% of the total increase.
But continued reliability of this flow of electricity into businesses and homes depends on the health of the system that supports it. This includes all links in the electrical power train—circuit breakers, wiring, and transformers.
