A 7.12 megawatt combined heat and power (CHP) plant was inaugurated in Amol County, Mazandaran Province.
According to the Energy Ministry news portal (Paven), Babakan Power Plant, built over 2,000 square meters, comprises 8 heat engines.
The cogeneration plant comprises two gas generators with a capacity of 2 MW, two gas generators with 1.56 MW capacity, two transformers with capacity of 2 mega volt-amperes and two transformers with a capacity of 2.5 mega volt-amperes.
The small-scale power plant cost $3 million and was built with help from the private sector. The news agency did not provide details.
It will assist in curbing power outages in the area as well as maintaining sustainable power supply to the northern power grid.
Cogeneration or combined heat and power is the use of a heat engine or power station to generate electricity and useful heat at the same time. Cogeneration is an efficient use of fuel.
In conventional power plants, some energy is discarded as waste heat, but in cogeneration most of the thermal energy is put to use.
Several CHP plants went on stream in the past few years in Ardebil and Yazd provinces.
Fars PV Plant
In a related news, Paven said a 10 MW photovoltaic power station was inaugurated in Fars Province on Sunday.
Built over 20 hectares in Larestan County, the venture is a private sector (Takht-E- Jamshid Pars Energy Company) undertaking that cost €12 million.
It will annually generate 16 gigawatt hours of electricity and help reduce greenhouse gasses and water use. If the same amount of energy was to be produced by a thermal power plant, 13,700 tons of carbon dioxide would be released in the atmosphere.
The plant will cut consumption of 5.6 million cubic meters of natural gas and 4,200 cubic meters of water per annum.
Fars Province has a high potential for absorbing solar energy and the total capacity of its solar power plants is in the range of 59 MW.
Iran is taking effective measures to boost green energy and one of the goals of the Energy Ministry is to move toward non-fossil fuels and renewables.
The number of private companies producing electricity from renewable sources — mainly wind and solar — has shot up from three to over 500 in five years.
