Installed power capacity of substations, including transmission and distribution, needs to expand by 10% to meet domestic power demand in summer when consumption levels always reach peak creating outages in some regions.
Seyyed Zaman Hosseini, a deputy managing director in Iran Power Generation, Distribution and Transmission Company (Tavanir) made the statement in the 5th International Transformer Conference and Exhibition in Tehran on Tuesday, Paven, the Energy Ministry news portal reported.
Length of the national power distribution network now surpasses 800,000 km and the grid was extended by more than 18,000 km in the last year alone, he said.
The number of transformers rose by 15,000 in the period, reaching 702,000 and include distribution, step-up, step-down, medium and large gas-insulated equipment.
Substation capacity increased by 2,000 megavolt ampere (MVA) during the year, up 2% compared to last year. Capacity in 2016 was 105,000 MVA.
"Power substations capacity has reached 107,000 MVA. However, half should be either repaired or replaced as they have outlived their usefulness," he added.
According to the official, there are 768 old distribution substations in Tehran, Fars and Khorasan provinces, which impair overload tolerance in the network.
Despite major improvements in manufacturing local transformers, some key parts must be imported. Fluctuations in the currency market plus US banking restrictions have added to the list of problems power companies face, he noted.
"Installed power capacity at 82 gigawatts has risen 11-fold over the last four decades," he said.
35.5 Million Consumers
Asked about consumers, Hosseini said the number of electricity meters nationwide is the region of 35.5 million, a 10-fold rise compared to 40 years ago.
Iran’s population before the 1979 Islamic Revolution was close to 35 million and now is over 80 million.
Household, agriculture, and industrial sectors account for 28.5 million, 436,000 and 242,000 subscribers respectively. The rest are public and commercial companies.
Close to 650,000 new subscribers joined the number of users since March, indicating a 3.1% rise compared to the same period last year.
The official warned that Iran's average electricity consumption growth rate is around 7% per year, 3.5 times over and above the global average, which is alarming.
"Imprudence has made us the 18th largest power consumer in the world," he rued, adding that consumption patterns should be reconsidered and the existing unsustainable consumption patterns must change and people should learn to be judicious.
