A contract was signed on Monday to build a combined cycle power plant with 500 megawatt capacity in the Qeshm Island off the Persian Gulf. The deal was signed between the MAPNA Group, Ghadir Investment Company, and the Qeshm Free Zone Organization.
The new plant is expected to be built in three years with an estimated $490 million investment.
MAPNA, as the major investor, is a consortium of several companies involved in manufacture and installation of energy production machinery, Fars news agency reported.
Development of the plant will be carried out in three phases.
Development of the first phase will take 24 months, in which a gas production unit will be built. Next, a steam unit is due to go operational within six months, and eventually, a water treatment unit will come on stream as part of the project.
The plant will also produce 100,000 million cubic meters of desalinated water when fully operational.
The ministry also has plans to convert several gas-fired plants with 17,000 MW capacity to combined cycle power plants. Close to 8,000 MW capacity of gas-fired plants was turned into combined cycle plants over the past year with $4.5 billion investment.
Such plants normally use both gas and steam turbines to produce up to 50 percent more electricity from the same fuel than traditional power plants.
