TEHRAN – Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian said nine thermal power plants as well as 10 dams are going to go on stream across the country by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 19, 2020), the portal of Energy Ministry (known as Paven) reported on Monday.

Speaking in the inauguration ceremony of an electricity project in the central province of Semnan, Ardakanian said the mentioned projects are going to be inaugurated to ensure that all Iranians have access to water and electricity.

According to the minister, the said dams are under construction in Tehran, Ilam, Qom, Yazd, Kerman, West Azarbaijan and Semnan provinces and when operational they will add 745 million cubic meters to Iranian dams’ water capacity.

He further stressed the important role of water and electricity infrastructures in development of the country, saying that every week 227 water and electricity projects will be inaugurated up to the end of the year and the government has allocated 330 trillion rials (about $7.85 billion) for completing such projects.

The mentioned projects will be inaugurated as a part of a major program called “A B Iran” [the acronyms A and B stand for water, electricity in Persian”, in which 10 trillion rials (over $238 million) of projects will be inaugurated in each of the country’s provinces, on average.   
Iran’s current power generation capacity stands at about 85 GW of which nearly 80 percent is generated by thermal power plants.

The capacity of Iran’s thermal power plants has increased by 9,000 megawatts (9GW) over the past six years, according to Paven.

Since August 2013 up to August 2019 a total of 69 thermal power plants have been constructed across the country to add 8,991 MW to the capacity of the country’s thermal electricity output.

EF/MA