Page 56 - IRANRptAug21

Iran ups electricity imports from Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Armenia amid heatwave outages
The MoE said that “great and high co-ordination” had been held between the oil and energy ministries of the neighbours to compensate for the reduced volumes.
Iran has increased electricity imports from neighbouring Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Armenia amid its serious difficulties with summer power outages experienced during an ongoing heatwave, the Tehran Times reported the Iranian energy ministry as saying on July 11.
“Up to 650 megawatts of electricity is currently imported from Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Armenia,” the ministry’s spokesman for the electricity industry, Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, was cited as writing on his social media account. He noted that due to infrastructure limitations and high domestic demand in the three countries, electricity beyond 650 MW could not be sourced from the neighbours.
Earlier last week, Rajabi Mashhadi said that Iran had stopped electricity exports to neighbouring countries due to the surge in domestic demand. Only 50 MW of electricity was being exported to Afghanistan as things stood, he added, noting that Iran’s power plants were only able to generate 54,000 MW of electricity, or nearly 12,000 MW less than domestic power demand.
Amid the heatwave, daily electricity consumption in Iran reached 66,250 MW (66.25 GW) on July 5, registering a new record.
The figure was 8,000 MW more than consumption recorded in the previous year’s peak period.
Severe drought mean Iran is currently able to produce only a very small amount of hydropower.
9.1.14 Defence sector news
Commander claims Iran has drones with 7,000 km range
Iran has drones with a range of 7,000 km (4,375 miles), the top commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on June 27, Iranian state media reported.
Israel has previously voiced its concerns about Iran’s growing drone capability, while there is an expanding potential threat to US troops stationed in Iraq from Tehran-backed militants who might conceivably make increasing use of Iranian drones should tensions between the US and Iran mount. No evidence for the claim of the extensive drone range made by Guards commander-in-chief Hossein Salami was presented in the local media reports but Washington might observe such a development in Iranian drone technology as a threat to regional stability. Iran has in the past downed US drones flying over its territory and has likely reverse-engineered technology it retrieved from wreckage.
Iran is known to exaggerate the capabilities of newly unveiled domestically produced defence hardware. Drones are, however, used as a key element in Tehran's border surveillance, especially over the Persian Gulf waters and the Strait of Hormuz. It is also widely believed that Iran has used drones in attacks on Saudi oil facilities, while regional forces that Iran backs have increasingly relied on drones in Yemen, Syria and Iraq in recent years.
"We have unmanned aerial vehicles with the long range of 7,000 kilometres. They can fly, return home, and make a landing wherever planned," Salami was quoted as saying by Fars News Agency.
Iran regularly showcases its drones. In January, the country displayed hundreds of domestically produced combat drones at war games held in central Semnan province. The Iranian armed forces also reportedly successfully test-fired an Azarakhsh (Thunderbolt) air-to-air missile fired from a Karrar-class drone during the second day of the drills.
56 IRAN Country Report August 2021 www.intellinews.com