The total liquid fuel delivered to the power plants across Iran last year (ended March 19) was 13.8 billion liters, of which about 4.3 billion liters were mazut and 9.5 billion liters diesel, managing director of Iran's Thermal Power Plants Holding Company said.
“Last year 50% of diesel and 30% of the mazut were used by power plants,” IRNA quoted Mohsen Tarztalab as saying.
This amount of liquid fuel consumption last year shows a significant rise compared to the previous year. In fiscal March 2018-19, domestic power plants consumed 6 billion liters of diesel and 3.5 billion liters of mazut.
Five years ago, mazut and diesel comprised 15.3% and 12.7% of the total fuel consumption in the power plants, respectively. In 2019, mazut use plummeted to 6.8% but diesel rose by 1.2% reaching 13.9%.
About 3.8 billion liters of the capacity of fuel storage tanks in power plants are allocated to diesel and 2.7 billion liters to mazut,” Tarztalab added.
The storage capacity has increased sharply compared to February when it was 300 million liters.
In the third month of the current year (May 21-June 20), there was an unprecedented rise in liquid fuel and gas consumption in power plants. Sudden hike in electricity consumption this year before summer, due to the rise in temperatures in several regions, has caused about 60 million liters of liquid fuel to be used in power stations.
Diesel and mazut use, especially in the cold seasons, along with temperature inversion, have a serious negative impact on air pollution.
In the past years, efforts have been made to stop using mazut as feedstock in power plants. The government has ordered power plants and refineries to use gas instead of polluting feedstock due to huge gas reserves and the rising output from South Pars Gas Field.
However, as gas consumption rises, especially among the households in the cold season, using mazut becomes inevitable for electricity generation as gas supply is cut off to power stations.
Moreover, using mazut is not suitable for power plants simply because it doubles maintenance costs, increases water consumption and decreases output.
Most thermal power plants are natural-gas based and feeding them liquefied fuels has long-term adverse effects like damaging machinery and parts.
