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Iran sets aside $40bn in reserves for nuclear power construction programme
Hosseini, said.
Breaking down progress, he noted that in the provinces of Semnan, Isfahan, Khuzestan, Yazd, Kerman, Khorasan, Hormozgan, Markazi and Sistan-Baluchistan, thermal power plant work had progressed to the extent of 90%, 86%, 72%, 64%, 57%, 50% , 48%, 24% and 22%, respectively.
“All the thermal power plants will be equipped with MAP2B gas turbines manufactured by MAPNA Group, a leading Iranian engineering and energy company,” Zaman Hosseini added.
Iran’s state budget for the next Persian calendar year (starts late March 2022) sets aside the equivalent of $40bn in reserves for the construction of nuclear power plants, Mehr News Agency reported.
Iran boasts the 1,000 MW Bushehr nuclear power plant—the first such civilian facility in the Middle East—that was connected to the grid in 2013, and the drought experienced by the country this year, its worst in 50 years, and climate change considerations appear to have brought home to officials the need to accelerate the construction of more such power plants. Iranians endured substantial power cuts during the hottest months as a lack of rainfall meant much of Iran’s hydroelectricity capacity could not be deployed.
Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mohammad Eslami, was quoted as saying by Mehr that the construction of additional nuclear power plant capacity would likely begin in the next Persian year. Projects would be financed with foreign investment, domestic financing, government resources and the acquisition of fixed assets, he said. An executive funding plan is to be prepared by the AEOI in cooperation with the Planning and Budgetary Organization (PBO) and the Ministry of Finance and Economy. The status of US sanctions applied to Iran will clearly be a consideration where foreign funding is concerned.
Iran’s nuclear industry, which started making a name for itself in the 1970s, remains under the scrutiny of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with the major powers concerned that the Iranians keep it entirely civilian, something Tehran insists it is committed to ensuring.
Energy Minister Ali-Akbar Mehrabian said in November that his ministry was pursuing an electricity provisioning programme to add 30,000 MW to Iran’s generating capacity by the end of the current government's term, which will come in August 2025. Some 21 power plant units would be brought into operation nationwide during the upcoming Persian year, he told parliament.
9.1.14 Utilities sector news
Tehran officials cut power to ‘big drain’ office blocks in bid to avoid blackouts
Fearing power shortages, Iran’s state electricity supplier has cut power to Tehran office blocks it says are a big drain on the grid, IRIB reported on June 22.
Drastic measures to reduce electricity consumption have become rather familiar to Iranians in recent years, with power demand outstripping capacity during peak consumption months in the summer. The total cost to the economy of a day of extensive blackouts, such as through the disruption of commerce, is often estimated in the millions of dollars.
Masoud Nasri, head of the Electricity Monitoring Centre in Tehran, in a live state TV interview listed the names of what he claimed were high-power-consumption offices, namely: Iranian Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines, Commerce Bank central building, Agriculture Bank, Tehran Telecommunication Centre, Iran International Exhibition Centre, Sharif University of Technology, Roads and Transportation Organisation and
67 IRAN Country Report August 2022 www.intellinews.com