Press TV - Iran has launched 25 new electricity projects worth nearly half a billion dollars as part of a massive plan to modernize the energy sector in the country.

The new projects opened on Tuesday are located in five provinces of Tehran in north, Hormozgan, Fars and Bushehr in south and Sistan and Baluchestan in southeast of Iran.

Energy Minister Reza Ardaknaian said that the launch of the projects marked the end of a six-month plan to finish 227 energy projects across Iran with an investment of 335.6 trillion rials (nearly $2.2 billion).

Ardaknaian said most of the projects opened since March 2019 in Iran have been focused on power generation, water treatment and sewage plants.

Among the projects launched on Tuesday was power plants in three provinces that added some 600 megawatts (MW) to the electricity generation capacity in the country, said the minister,

He added that for a first time in Iran, local technicians and engineers had managed to install and bring on line the domestically-built F-class gas turbines at Hengam, a 307-MW power plant located in the southern province of Hormozgan.

Ardaknian said that the government plans a further investment of nearly $60 billion for more than 5,000 new projects in the energy sector in the next Iranian calendar year starting on March 20.

He said more than 60 percent of the funds allocated to the energy projects in Iran come from non-government sources, including the private financing and loans obtained from the country’s sovereign wealth fund.

The minister hailed the role played by Mapna, Iran’s largest energy engineering and construction group, in expanding the country's energy sector, saying the company has offered both investment and expertise to massive projects in the country.