The second 310-megawatt gas unit of Dalahou Combined Cycle Power Plant in Eslamabad-e-Gharb County in Kermanshah Province, started operation Thursday as part of the government’s power infrastructure expansion plans for the western regions.
With total capacity of 910 MW, the plant has two 310 MW class F gas units, two boilers and a condenser unit. A 290 MW steam unit will go on stream in 2021, the Energy Ministry news portal reported.
The project so far has cost $400 million, of which $150 million was put up by the private sector and the rest was borrowed from the National Development Fund of Iran, the country's sovereign wealth fund.
The first (310 MW) gas unit of the power station became operational in 2019.
The plant is owned and built by Farab Company that has built several power plants and is active in the oil, gas and petrochemical projects, railroads plus construction of water, wastewater treatment and desalination plants. The company has built power plants in Iraq, Tajikistan and Kenya.
It has an efficiency rate of 56% and domestic manufacturers provided half the equipment for the Dalahou plant.
A simple cycle gas turbine has energy conversion efficiency of maximum 35%, which rises up to 60% in combined-cycle systems.
The main air cooled condenser (ACC) of the plant is designed and implemented with a concrete base that was commended by the Concrete Research Center as a top national concrete project last year.
ACC is a direct dry cooling system where steam is condensed inside air-cooled finned tubes. In thermal power plants, the steam from the turbine exhaust flows into the ACC where condensation occurs. Then the condensate returns to the boiler in a closed loop.
Thermal Units
In related news, Deputy Energy Minister Homayoun Haeri said Iran’s installed power generation capacity has reached 84,000 MW. Thermal units, which either use steam, gas-powered or combined-cycle turbines, account for 67,000 MW of the total. Construction of steam units has started in several power plants.
“With the construction of 46 steam units across the country, total electricity production will increase by about 7,500 MW without raising fuel consumption.”
If the same amount of power was to be produced by gas units, more than 12 billion cubic meters of gas would be used, he said.
So far steam units in power plants in Kashan, Asalouyeh, Urmia, Parand and Jahrom have been synchronized to the national grid, he added. Three more units will be launched come March and will add 960 MW to the national electricity network.
Ten more steam units are under construction in different cities and plans are underway to add 25 more in state and private power plants in Shahroud, Semnan, Isfahan, Iranshahr and Mahshahr, among others.
Power load peaked at all-time high of 58,104 MW on July 18, which was 330 MW more than in 2019. However, consumption has declined in the past few days as the weather cools and fall arrives.
Iran needs to raise electricity generation as consumption climbs regularly and the number of subscribers rises without interruption. With 83 million people, Iran is the 18th largest power consumer in the world.
