Two new gas units of Tarasht Power Plant in Tehran will be completed by the next summer and the rest of units will be operational by the end of summer, director of power plant project at the Thermal Power Plants Holding Company said.
“The construction project has accelerated and at the same time worn-out units are being decommissioned,” Barq News also quoted Farshid Haddadi as saying.
“Tarasht power plant was established in the 1930s with four steam units and a wet cooling tower, with a nominal capacity of 50 megawatts, to supply electricity to Tehran,” he said.
“At the time, the power plant provided more than 50% of Tehran's electricity needs. However, it is now over 60 years old and has low efficiency [about 20%]. Its water consumption is also high [up to 3,000 cubic meters per day].”
Haddadi said decommissioning the aging station and building six gas units with a nominal capacity of 9.8 MW per unit with an efficiency of 46.3% were planned by TPPHC.
According to the official, since September, two steam units have been phased out and the wet cooling tower has also been demolished.
The old power station was a traditional simple cycle while the new one will be a combined-cycle one, equipped with F-class turbines that consume less gas and are more eco-friendly than the turbines in conventional power plants
“The old power station was a traditional simple cycle while the new one will be a combined-cycle one, equipped with F-class turbines that consume less gas and are more eco-friendly than turbines in conventional power plants,” he said.
A combined-cycle power plant uses both gas and steam turbines to produce up to 50% more electricity from the same fuel than a traditional simple cycle plant. The waste heat from the gas turbine is sent to a nearby steam turbine to generate electricity.
Haddadi said Iran's long-term plans to boost electricity output from the current 84,000 MW to 120,000 MW cannot be realized, unless new power plants come on stream.
More than 80% of electricity output come from thermal plants that use fossil fuels.
Over two-thirds of Iran’s thermal power plants are owned and operated by private firms and generate almost 67% of the domestic thermal power.
With an installed capacity of 84 gigawatts, Iran ranks ninth in terms of thermal power capacity in the world.
The Energy Ministry is gradually phasing out inefficient power plants, expanding electricity infrastructure and acquiring modern technology. However, financial constraints have slowed the process.
Effective steps have been taken to convert conventional plants into combined-cycle units to improve efficiency and reduce pollution and costs.
Tehran has more than five million power subscribers, of which 75% are households. At least 100,000 new customers join the subscription list every year, which has grown at a regular pace and piled pressure on utilities, such as water, electricity and gas.
TPPHC oversees dozens of fossil fuel power plants with an installed capacity of over 71,000 MW, constituting the bulk of electricity demand.
