Shahid Salimi (Neka) Power Plant in Mazandaran Province at irregular intervals uses mazut besides natural gas as feedstock and is contributing to the air and environment pollution in the pristine tourist region in north Iran.
The rural population in the vicinity of the huge complex has often complained about severe environmental pollution. Brownish smoke, associated with burning mazut, rising from the power plant has disrupted their normal lives, they say.
The director general of the provincial office of the Department of Environment told Bargh News that the issue is important for the DoE.
“We have filed a complaint against the power plant several times and are strongly pursuing the elimination of mazut use in the plant,” Hossein-Ali Ebrahimi Karami said.
The plant was earlier banned by judicial authority of Neka County and initially complied with the prosecutor’s order, but recently reverted back to using the highly polluting fuel.
Mazut is a heavy, low quality fuel oil used as an alternative to run thermal power plants and factories.
Located 25 km north of Neka City, the 2,214-megawatt plant is one of the largest of its kind in Iran. It has a steam power unit, four steam turbines, a combined-cycle power facility, two gas units and a steam unit.
Speaking about the use of mazut, head of the provincial gas company said not receiving enough natural gas as feedstock forces them to do so.
“Our company is a distributor and the gas required by the province must be provided to us so that we can supply the power plant,” Jafar Ahmadpour was quoted as saying by Bargh News.
The managing director of Neka Power Plant also expressed concern over pollution problems in the region. “We are obliged to generate electricity from the fuel the government provides. Choosing the type and quality of fuel is not in our hands, but we prefer not to use mazut because it damages the plant”.
“We have been in contact with different officials and organizations. Even the president [Hassan Rouhani] instructed the gas company to supply the gas the plant,” Mohsen Nemati added.
Gas production capacity has now approached 830 million cubic meters per day. Iran is developing South Pars Gas Field in the Persian Gulf to raise daily gas output to at least 900 bcm in 2021.
An estimated 125 power stations are in operation across Iran and thermal stations, mostly gas-fired, account for 80% of Iran’s total power generation of 84,000 MW.
Although the majority of power plants burn gas to generate electricity, there are still some that use liquid fuels as well. 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.
Diesel and mazut use, especially in the cold seasons, along with temperature inversion, have a serious negative impact on air pollution.
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.
