To help stabilize power supply in southern provinces, an agreement has been concluded between Khuzestan Regional Electricity Company and an Emirati private firm, the head of provincial power company said.
“As per the contract, AJ Holding is obliged to build several small-scale distributed generation power plants as well as solar and wind power stations to generate 150 MW of power,” Mahmoud Dashtbozorg was also quoted as saying by Barq News.
The deal was signed on Wednesday in Ahvaz between Allan Jespersen, AJ Holding’s CEO, and Dashtbozorg.
“The plants are slated to become operational by the end of 2022,” he added.
Established as a separate entity in 2020 which is both owned and managed by industrial experts, AJ Holding is a highly specialized project executor within the renewable energy sector.
The private company aims to provide local developers, financial institutions and private investors with customized solutions that will accommodate their specific requirements.
Dashtbozorg added that another agreement has been concluded with an Iranian firm, Safat Energy Company, based on which the private sector enterprise is required to build a total of 150 MW of small-scale power station in the region.
The project will be synchronized with the national power grid by mid-July in 2022, he added.
The length of transmission and distribution lines in the province has exceeded 9,000 kilometers, which has more than 245 transmission and distribution substations.
GIS Systems
Three gas-insulated substations have also been built in the province to reduce load shedding and frequent outages.
"GIS systems cost twice as much as regular substations but play a key role in reducing power cuts in sandstorm regions," he said.
The three 132-kilovolt substations cost $35 million and were built in two years.
A GIS uses dielectric gas and sulfur hexaflouride at moderate pressure for insulation. It is mostly used where space is expensive or not available.
In a GIS, the active parts, including transformers and feeders, are protected from corrosion emanating from exposure to atmospheric air, moisture, contamination and sand.
Dashtbozorg said the facilities were purchased from ABB, a Swedish-Swiss multinational corporation headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, in 2017.
The senior official in the oil-rich province said the power grid in the region will be equipped with nine more GIS systems expected to cost $105 million.
"Repairing and rebuilding infrastructure, namely substations and power transmission equipment, battered by dust storms, is expensive,” he added, stressing the role and significance of GISs.
Dust storms have become a near permanent feature of the southern regions over the past several years, knocking out electricity grids in several cities in Khuzestan where the mercury exceeds 50 degrees Celsius in summer.
Dashtbozorg noted that in 2015, the sandstorm was so strong that the entire power network was hit and oil output decreased by 700,000 barrels for some days.
The province accounts for 70% of the country's crude oil production.
According to Houshang Falahatian, a deputy energy minister, the ministry allocated around $500 million to restore power to Khuzestan in 2017.
Residents also suffer intermittent water supply cuts due to the power failures. According to experts, most of the sources of dust storms, which have worsened in recent years, are in neighboring Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Syria.
