Page 59 - IRANRptDec21

Iran to build thermal power plant in Shahid Salimi
Russian envoy raises issue of ‘unpaid $500mn owed by Iran for Bushehr nuclear power plant work’
Iran was forced to cut electricity supplies to some major industrial units over the summer to curb power cuts in large cities and towns. The country suffered a prolonged drought that undermined its hydroelectricity sector, causing a deficit in available power. Electricity imports were ordered from Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, but rolling power cuts still became a summer headache for many millions of Iranians.
The outages even caused price hikes for some major manufacturing products such as cement and steel.
The types of power plants that would be constructed with the investment from manufacturers was not specified by the PressTV report, but Iranian energy minister Ali Akbar Mehrabian said on October 12 that the government would press ahead with plans to increase electricity generation capacity in the thermal and renewable sectors. He added that his ministry had set a target of creating 35 GW of new capacity in the electricity generation sector within the next four years.
Iran is set to build a 484 MW thermal power plant (TPP) in the vicinity of Zahedan County in the southern coastal Sistan and Baluchistan Province, Bargh News has reported.
“The construction of a thermal power plant in Zahedan, Sistan-Baluchistan will soon begin,” Mahmoud Sadeki, director of the gas-fired power plants project of the Thermal Power Plants holding, was cited as saying, adding that gas would be sourced from the provincial gas company.
The announcement of the planned TPP came days after the energy minister, Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, said on September 20 that Iran might face a shortage of 50mn litres of liquefied natural gas (LNG) during the upcoming winter, which could translate into power cuts in certain regions.
“If in winter the gas delivered to the power plants is 100 million cubic metres per day, the power plants will still face a shortage of 50 million litres of fuel per day to use their full capacity,” the minister said.
Russia’s Ambassador to Tehran, Levan Jagaryan, has stated that Iran has failed to pay Moscow $500mn for work on constructing Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant-2, Kommersant reported on August 23.
Several dozen Russian engineers, based with their families in proximity to the plant in southern Iran on the Persian Gulf coast, have worked on the facility since 2003.
“Unfortunately, it has not yet been possible to resolve the issue of Iranian debts for Bushehr nuclear power plant,” the ambassador reportedly said, adding that the difficulty with outstanding payments was related to US sanctions on Tehran throttling banking connections between the two countries.
The nuclear plant is monitored by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as part of the effort to ensure Iran keeps its nuclear power programme entirely civilian in line with the 2015 nuclear deal.
Initial construction on the Bushehr plant began as far back as under Iran's Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the mid-1970s. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the shah, the plant was repeatedly targeted in the Iran-Iraq war. Russia subsequently completed construction of the facility. The plant sits near active earth fault lines but was built to withstand powerful quakes. It has been periodically shaken by temblors.
59 IRAN Country Report December 2021 www.intellinews.com