Since the beginning of the water year last September, the amount of water stored in dams in Mazandaran Province has jumped by 40% to reach 311 million cubic meters, head of the maintenance department in the provincial water company said.
“The 10 dams in the region can hold 330 mcm of water and almost all are full,” Mansour Rezaie Kalantari was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Referring to two important dams, namely Shahid Rajaee and Alborz, he said the former holds 154 mcm of water, up 95% compared to the previous year.
The amount of water in the latter (Alborz dam) has exceeded 137 mcm, up 5 mcm compared to 2019.
According to the official, close to 220,000 hectares of land is used for rice farming in the northern province and the water company is responsible for supplying the paddy fields with water by releasing dam water from March 10.
“Precipitation has risen by 15% in Mazandaran over the last five months, because of which all 800 artificial wetlands with capacity to hold 370 mcm of water are full.”
To meet the province’s need, in addition to surface water (1.5 billion cubic meters), around 1.3 bcm is extracted from underground resources.
In related news, Hassan Norouz-Mohammadi, operator of Shahid Rajaee Dam, 40 km south of the provincial capital Sari, said one-third of the dam should remain empty as more precipitation is forecast in March and April.
Hydro Capacity
"The dam has four hydroelectric power stations which will work for six months in the next fiscal starting March 21."
The four power plants produced 30,000 megawatt hours of electricity in 2018. This will reach at least 60,000 MWh in 2020, supplying power to 60,000 subscribers in the area.
With higher water levels in hydroelectric dams across the country, hydropower plants are expected to generate 10,000 MW of electricity, almost double compared to 2018 when the figure was barely 5,000 MW.
Hydroelectric plants have an important role during power outages as they quickly restore supply after blackouts and support thermal plants, which constitute 80% of the power plants in the country.
Hydropower is a renewable source of energy and is cleaner compared to other power plants. It constitutes a maximum of 12,000 MW of Iran’s total installed power generation capacity of 83,000 MW.
According to the Energy Ministry news website, rainfall in the past few weeks has raised water levels in dams and almost 54% of the dams are now full. Dams across Iran can hold a maximum of 50 bcm of water.
