The construction of steam unit at the Sahand combined-cycle power station in East Azarbaijan Province has registered a work-in-progress rate of 45% and is expected to be linked with the national power grid next summer, deputy for projects development at the Thermal Power Plants Holding Company said.
“The facility, located in Bonab County, has a gas unit with the capacity of 300 megawatts and the under construction steam unit will add 140 MW to its total capacity,” Mohammad Ramezani was also quoted as saying by the Energy Ministry’s news portal.
Upon the completion of the steam unit, annual natural gas consumption will reduce by 6 billion cubic meters at the power plant, he added.
As per the contract signed between the power plant and the provincial water and wastewater company, the latter is obliged to supply the much-needed wastewater to the unit.
In gas power plants, the heat from gas units is released from the exhaust of units with a temperature of 540-600 degrees centigrade which, in addition to wasting energy, increases the emission of greenhouse gases. Conducting heat to the steam sector will help the environment and generate electrical energy.
Ramezani said the new unit will be equipped with an F-class turbine that is being built by Iran’s top engineering and energy enterprise, MAPNA Group.
With an installed power production capacity of about 90,000 MW, Iran meets almost 80% of its electricity demand from aging thermal plants that outlived their usefulness. Converting conventional plants to combined cycle units is a government priority.
A combined cycle power plant produces up to 50% more electricity from the same fuel than a traditional simple cycle power plant. This is because waste heat from a gas turbine is rerouted to the nearby steam turbine to generate power.
East Azarbaijan’s other power plants include Heris combined-cycle plant and the thermal power plant of Tabriz with a production capacity of 1,000 MW and 800 MW respectively.
Another 600-megawatt power plant will be built next to Soufian power plant, in northwest Tabriz, with F-class turbines.
Soufian is one of the four power plants in the province with a 100-MW production capacity. It is located 40 km from Soufian.
The official noted that 598 steam and gas units are operational in 129 thermal power plants.
Production Capacity
Despite the rise in production capacity, the power network is still suffering from a deficit of at least 10,000 MW, he said.
Ramezani said 70% of the total capacity of domestic thermal power plants are owned by the private sector.
Total electricity generation capacity in Iran has surpassed 89,000 MW and another 6,000 MW planned by the Energy Ministry will be added to the current capacity in the fall.
Iran has experienced electricity supply and demand imbalances over the past three years mainly because of a surge in energy-intensive cryptocurrency mining and a heavier use of natural gas in manufacturing and household sectors, which has caused power plants to operate at lower capacity.
To help further stabilize the grid, TPPHC has started converting seven single-cycle power plants into combined-cycles after it received the green light of the government’s Economic Council in June.
The official said steam units in six gas-powered stations operated by the private sector will be converted at an estimated cost of $2.5 billion.
Giving a breakdown on the venture, Ramezani said the total volume of power generation of these plants, namely the Soltaniyeh Power Plant in Zanjan, Zagros Power Station in the western Kermanshah Province, Persian Gulf Power Plant in Hormozgan Province, Golestan and Semnan power plants in the namesake provinces, Khorramshahr facility in Khuzestan and Shahid Kaveh Power Plant in Khorasan Razavi Province, is below 5,000 MW but will reach 7,500 MW after conversion.
