Construction of two power plants with total 1,000 MW capacity is set to begin in Khuzestan and Khorasan Razavi provinces in February, the Energy Ministry news portal Paven reported.
A 546 MW facility will be built with indigenized equipment in Andimeshk City, Khuzestan Province. The combined-cycle power plant will have two gas units with E-class turbines and a steam unit.
The main equipment including turbines, generators, boilers, cooling and control systems is being manufactured by Mapna Group. The project will create direct and indirect jobs for 4,000 people in the southwestern oil region.
Mapna is a group of companies involved in a range of projects including the expansion of thermal and renewable power plants, railroads, oil and gas field development, onshore and offshore drilling services, auxiliary facilities, utility and storage tanks, as well as the design and manufacture of equipment such as turbo-compressors for pipelines, refineries and processing units.
It also has helped in developing the power sectors in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Oman and Indonesia.
Ageing Power Station
Construction of Mashhad Combined Cycle Power Plant with 400 MW capacity will also begin in February, head of Iran’s Thermal Power Plants Holding Company said. It will replace the old thermal power station in operation for over 50 years, Mohsen Tarztalab said.
“The simple-cycle plant is one of the oldest in Mashhad and supplies a large part of the electricity to world famous shrine city of 3 million,” Tarztalab said.
The plant’s efficiency is very low and water consumption very high -- about 450,000 cubic meters annually. “At present, the efficiency of the plant is about 27%. The new combined-cycle plant will have a rate of 55%.”
A combined-cycle power plant produces up to 50% more electricity from the same fuel than a traditional simple-cycle plant. The waste heat from the gas turbine is routed to the nearby steam turbine, which generates extra power.
Construction of the new power station will be carried out by private companies, Tarztalab said. “With construction of the new power plant the old units of the aging facility will be phased out gradually”.
With installed power production capacity of 84,500 MW, Iran meets almost 80% of its electricity demand from aging thermal plants operating for decades.
THPCC oversees dozens of fossil fuel power plants with installed capacity of over 65,000 MW -- the bulk of domestic demand.
The aspiration to decommission ageing plants appears to be a tall order (at least for now) because the government has been struggling hard to plug its ballooning deficit and the private sector is not interested due to the bloated bureaucracy and not being sure about the mechanism to receive money once the projects are completed.
Iran's long-term plans to boost electricity output from the current 84,500 MW to 120,000 MW cannot be realized unless new power plants come on stream and old plants are renovated, Tarztalab said.
Power plants collectively producing 3,000 megawatts have long outlived their usefulness and should be either phased out or renovated. According to Tarztalab, if rehabilitation work is delayed further maintenance costs will rise to the detriment of the highly subsidized energy sector.
