The number of electricity meters nationwide has risen by 350,000 over the past 12 months to reach 38 million.
According to IRNA and based on information from the Energy Ministry and Iran Power Generation, Distribution and Transmission Company (Tavanir), the total number of consumers in four sectors (households, industries, agriculture and commerce) was 37,650 million in 2020, which has now experienced a 0.9% rise.
Giving a breakdown, the state news agency noted that household subscribers witnessed the biggest increase and reached 30.4 million, up 7% compared to 2020 when the figure stood at 30.2 million.
There were about 480,000 electricity meters in the agro sector last year, which has now risen by 4%, meaning 10,000 new subscribers have been added to the key sector.
The number of consumers in the commercial sector has experienced a rise of 20%. In other words, 80,000 new users have been added, increasing the number of subscribers in the commercial sector to 5.1 million.
Industrial consumers have increased from 1.7 million to 1.9 million.
According to Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, the Energy Ministry’s spokesman, the number of electricity meters nationwide in household, agricultural and industrial sectors has grown 12 times in four decades.
“There were three million electricity consumers in 1980, which figure is currently 38 million,” he added.
The national electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure is expanding, as output and demand have reached 60 gigawatts and 57 GW, respectively.
Referring to data released by Tavanir, Rajabi said transmission lines that supply from the main power stations to substations in and around cities now stretch over 815,000 kilometers, of which 15,000 km were laid last year. The total length of transmission lines was 68,000 km in 1980.
Distribution lines, which carry electricity from substations to homes, industries and other end-users, extended by 1,000 kilometers in 2019 to reach 130,000 km.
“Installed capacity of substations, including transmission and distribution, has reached 122,000 megavolt ampere (MVA), up 16% compared to 2016 when it was 105,000 MVA,” he added.
According to the spokesman, the transmission capacity of substations, both step-up and step-down stations, increased by 8,000 MVA last year, whereas distribution increased by 7,000 MVA.
Energy Ministry data show that $120 million have been spent to expand rural power infrastructure since 2013 largely for installing towers, building substations for transmission and distribution, expanding high voltage transmission lines and aerial transmission cables.
Close to 309 billion kilowatt hours of electricity were produced in 2019, up 6.1% compared to the previous year. Based on data from the Statistical Center of Iran, 2.9 billion kilowatt hours were exported to Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, up 4.7% compared to 2018.
