Construction of the first coal-fired power plant in Iran has been initiated with permission from the ministry of energy and the vice-Presidency for strategic planning and supervision, following the discovery of one billion tons of coal reserve in Tabas in South Khorasan Province,.
“Power generated from coal-fired power plants is to be the electricity sector’s new policy, a procedure already being carried out in many countries including China, Japan, US, Russia and some European countries,” announced Mostafa Alirabbani, an official with Iran Power Development Company (IPDC), Mehr News Agency reported.
“Due to an abundance of natural gas and petroleum-based resources for fueling power plants, Iran did not pay attention to coal for power generation in the past,” Alirabbani said.
In the past few years, the official added, in view of an increase in fuel prices and the fact that fossil fuel can be easily exported, the energy ministry and the vice-Presidency for strategic planning and supervision decided to include coal in the energy basket.
Currently, two 325 MW power plants are under construction in Tabas. With indigenization of technology for building such power plants, the country will move towards construction of more coal-fired power plants in future, the IPDC official noted.
The Tabas power plant is being constructed in a desert far from any city and will be equipped with pollution-reduction systems, Alirabbani said, and added there was “no reason for concerns regarding air pollution.”
Recalling that generation of each kilowatt-hour of electricity from natural gas costs about 12 cents, Alirabbani said using coal for power generation cuts the figure by 5 cents and is therefore economically feasible.
