At present, 48% of the capacity of liquid fuel storage tanks in thermal power stations across the country are full, the spokesman of Iran Power Generation, Distribution and Transmission Company said.
“The volume of liquid fuel reserves in power stations is in a good condition compared to last year, as there are about 800 million liters more fuel stored in the tanks,” the Energy Ministry also quoted Mostafa Rajabi-Mashhadi as saying.
“Of course, we should not think it is enough because due to the cold weather that has increased gas consumption, there is a possibility of reducing the amount of gas injected into power plants. In this case, they will have to use liquid fuel and if so, the volume of tanks will decrease rapidly,” he added.
The spokesman noted that currently, 50% of the fuel for the country's thermal power plants constitute gas and the rest is liquid fuel, mainly diesel.
“Daily gas consumption in the domestic and commercial sectors has increased from 520 million cubic meters to 540 mcm in recent days, and the figure is expected to reach 600 mcm soon,” he said.
Iran produces close to 1 billion cubic meters of gas per day and with the rise in domestic gas consumption in cold seasons, less gas is fed to the power plants as the priority is to supply gas to households. Therefore, the power stations will need to burn liquid fuel to keep generating electricity.
The use of liquefied fuels is not economical for power plants, and when they use liquid fuel instead of gas, their repair costs increase.
Gas has a lower price than liquid fuel. However, sometimes plants are forced to use it instead of gas to prevent power outages.
Natural gas supply to power plants was cut last winter due to a rise in home gas consumption, and more mazut and diesel were used. Therefore, the supply of liquefied fuels to thermal power plants is underway so that no power cuts take place in the current winter.
The Energy Ministry is collaborating with the Oil Ministry to fill the fuel storage tanks of power plants so that they can fully operate and generate electricity in winter.
Two years ago, about 1.9 billion liters of diesel were delivered to power plants. The figure increased last year and reached 2 billion liters. By the end of the current Iranian year [March 2021-22], 2.2 billion liters of the liquid fuel will have been delivered to the stations.
A cold winter has been forecast this year because of which gas delivery to power stations may be cut to 50 mcm/d (as in last year) unless families rethink their consumption patterns.
Iran burns record amounts of natural gas, which is way higher than the global average. While average global gas consumption has risen by 1.65% in three decades, demand for the fuel in Iran has shot up by 4.2% in the same period.
According to reports, of the 28 million gas subscribers in Iran, 25% consume gas excessively.
