Energy consumption in Iran is worrying and if the current trend continues, the total amount of energy generated in the country will have to be used domestically by 2025, the managing director of Iran's Power Generation, Distribution and Transfer Company (Tavanir) said on Tuesday.
Arash Kordi made the statement on the sidelines of the 15th International Electricity Exhibition in Tehran.
Kordi pointed to a 4-5% annual rise in energy consumption and said up to 94.6% of the energy generated in 2014 were supplied by fossil fuels, which equal 68 billion liters of fuel a year, IRNA reported.
Earlier this year, Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian said Iranians have access to "the most inexpensive electricity in the world" at a rate of approximately 1.4 cent per kilowatt-hour, with power consumption roughly three times higher than the global average.
Iran's total supplied energy in 2005 was equal to 1.2 billion barrels of crude oil, which rose to 1.7 billion barrels in 2013.
Kordi said, “Today, the world is using F- to J-class combined-cycle power plants with a minimum efficiency of 68% … We are trailing behind. Around 3-4% improvement in the current efficiency level of 39% at power plants nationwide would save a great amount of fuel."
The energy official said the country’s budget law will allow us to expand the installed capacity of the electricity network to 100,000 MW by 2021, of which 5% will be produced via renewable wind and hydroelectric plants.
Iran's nominal power generation capacity stands at around 74,000, with 61,000 MW coming from thermal power plants, 12,000 MW from hydroelectric plants and only 1,000 MW from nuclear power.
The Tavanir CEO pointed to the high rate of wastage at distribution networks, which decreased from 15.5% in October 2014 to 10.5% in 2015 and hoped that the figure will decrease to a single-digit percentage by March 2016.
According to Kordi, energy consumption in Iran is 3.2 times higher than the global average in agriculture sector, and 1.8, 1.6 and 1.5 times higher in household, public and commercial sectors respectively.
Tavanir has plans to optimize consumption patterns in 38 industries, including cement, aluminum, plaster and foundry, in cooperation with the Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade.
Kordi stressed the importance of modification in other sectors, transmission in particular, and announced that $660 million in investment are needed annually.
