Tehran Times – Some 3000 megawatts (MW) capacity of new power plants have been added to the country’s electricity network in the current Iranian calendar year (started on March 21) to supply the demands in the summer peak period, IRNA reported on Tuesday quoting an official with the energy ministry.

According to the ministry’s spokesperson Mostafa Rajabi, heavy rainfalls in the country has increased the electricity output of the country’s hydropower plants by nearly 4500 MW.

“Currently, the country's electricity grid is completely stable, electricity exports are being ongoing normally and there is no electricity supply cut due to shortage,” he said.
In the past decade, constant temperature rising and significant decrease of rainfalls across Iran has put the country in a hard situation regarding electricity supply during peak consumption periods.

So in the past few years power outages have been imposed in big cities to balance the power generation and consumption in such timespans.

Last year, the volume of water behind the country’s dams went so down that electricity output from hydropower plants fell to a decade low. The situation was worsen by a jump in electricity consumption due to a heat-wave that blanketed the country during summer and consequently led to a huge gap between actual power generation and consumption.

This year, however, the situation has changed drastically and heavy precipitations in spring almost completely filled the country’s dams and the country’s hydropower plants are said to be on full potential and compensate last year’s shortages.

In March, Homayoun Haeri, the deputy minister of energy for electricity affairs, said Iranian power plants are set to produce at least 51 gigawatts (GW) of electricity during the peak hours of consumption in summer.

"The production record high of 47,000 megawatts (47GW) which was achieved in last summer should not only be maintained this year but we need to increase the number to at least 51,000 megawatts (51GW),” Haeri said.

Earlier this month, Head of Iran Water and Power Resources Development Company (IWPC) Behrouz Moradi said that the electricity output of the country’s hydroelectric power plants is expected to reach 20,000 gigawatt hours (GWh) in the first half of the current Iranian calendar year (to end on September 22), four times more than the figure for last year’s same period.

Iran’s current power generation capacity stands at about 81 GW of which the share of hydroelectric power stands at 19.87 percent.

In late May, the Energy Ministry announced that it plans to inaugurate 22 new units with a total capacity of 3,933 MW in the current [Iranian calendar] year along with upgrading and increasing the efficiency of existing power plants to add another 461 MW of new capacity.