Use of mazut as feedstock in power plants in the capital has reached zero, head of Tehran Thermal Power Generation Company, a subsidiary of Iran's Thermal Power Plants Holding Company, said.
"Mazut, the eco-unfriendly fuel, accounted for 50% of feedstock in five main power plants in Tehran Province up until 2015. That has now declined to zero with positive and encouraging effect on curbing air pollution," Yaghoub Rouhi was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Parand and Shohadaye Pakdasht combined-cycle power plants, Tarasht Thermal Power Plant in the west and the Rey and Besat stations in the south meet the electricity needs of the province.
“So long as the facilities are supplied with enough natural gas, there will be no need for liquefied fuels.”
Referring to TPPHC’s measures to mitigate pollution from the huge stations, he said measures have been taken at the Besat station to collect carbon dioxide emissions.
“Special equipment has been installed on exhaust (smoke) stack to capture and reuse harmful gases,” he said.
The environment-friendly project is aimed at reducing greenhouse gases, he said, and noted that the same plan will be implemented in other plants.
Iran is the world's eighth biggest CO2 emitter, producing 552 million tons in 2015, according to published reports.
Toxic emissions from the country's oil and natural gas production that have been drivers of economic growth for decades are major polluters. Iran is one of the 195 signatories of the Paris climate accord (2017) to cut greenhouse gases and cap global warming at below 2 degrees Celsius.
Fossil fuel power plants generate significant amounts of CO2 believed to be the main cause of global warming and climate change nations are struggling hard to curb and control.
Among CO2 mitigation options, carbon capture and storage is considered the only technology that can significantly reduce CO2 emission from fossil fuel combustion in Iran’s thermal plants.
Explosive Growth
In related news, IRNA quoted Mohsen Tarztalab, head of the TPPHC, as saying that Tehran has more than five million electricity subscribers, 75% of which are households.
At least 100,000 new customers join the subscription list every year that has grown at a regular pace piling pressure on utilities, namely water, electricity and gas.
Tarztalab added that work to overhaul thermal power plants across the country and improve output has started. Thermal plants account for 80% of total domestic power output (84 gigawatts) in the country of 83 million people. Eighty thermal power plants with 65,841 MW capacity are operational, the TPPHC boss added.
THPCC oversees dozens of fossil fuel power plants with installed capacity of over 65,000 MW -- the bulk of Iran's electricity demand. It also is in charge of building 7,000 MW of gas-powered units for the Shiraz, Tabriz, Kashan, Urmia and Chabahar combined cycle power plants.
Air Quality
The capital’s ten million residents inhaled more polluted air in October compared to the same period last year, data from Tehran Municipality show.
Charts published by Tehran Air Quality Control Company’s website, airnow.tehran.ir, illustrate that the air quality index did not enter the range of good air quality even for one day.
While there is regular debate on the variety of factors contributing to poor air quality in the metropolis, the head of TAQCC, Hossein Shahidzadeh, has blamed the 100,000 dilapidated cars plying the roads in and around Tehran.
He says over 3.43 million passenger cars are seen in the capital’s streets every day, 100,000 of which were built almost two decades ago old and have outlived their usefulness.
The ageing vehicles emit 579,000 tons of toxins into the air annually or 1,586 tons a day. Energy experts have warned that even new domestically made cars are of poor quality and fuel intensive that contribute to the worsening air pollution.
