As the warm weather approaches, households have switched on their cooling appliances resulting in considerable hike in electricity consumption. Thus, gas supply to thermal power plants has increased by 62% compared to last month, the National Iranian Gas Company spokesman said.
“Average daily gas consumption in thermal power plants was 120 million cubic meters in the first month of the Iranian calendar (March 21-April 20). It reached 195 mcm on May 13 -- 75 mcm more than the last month average,” IRNA quoted Majid Bujarzadeh as saying.
Coolers, mostly air conditioners and water coolers, in the hot summers raise power consumption to levels that the authorities are often compelled to announce outages in different parts of the country.
Since a large part of Iran's electricity (almost 80%) is generated from thermal power plants, gas consumption too soars in the warm season.
Iran has abundant natural gas deposits and using natural gas as feedstock is a priority in the power stations as it is more cost-effective compared to liquid fuels. Almost all (96%) thermal power plants are powered by natural gas.
The government has substantially raised gas production in recent years, especially from the giant South Pars Gas Field in the Persian Gulf. Close to 220 billion cubic meters of gas is produced annually from this gas field of which 70 bcm is sold to power stations.
