Iran’s electricity down despite output capacity growth

Iran’s domestic electricity sales decreased by more than 21 terawatt-hours (TWh) to 206.3 TWh during the last fiscal year, according to Energy Ministry.

The statistics of the annual report, released on the Ministry’s website indicate that the country increased the power generation capacity by about 2.64 GW, but the actual gross electricity generation decreased by 5.218 TWh during the last fiscal year, compared to the same period of the previous year. Iran’s fiscal year started on March 21.

Electricity consumption	Last fiscal year TWh	Y/Y change TWh	Share of total consumption	Number of consumers (1000)
Housing sector	70.587	-5.516	34.2%	27,220
Public sector	19.587	-2.609	9.5%	1,570
Industrial sector	64.535	-7.692	31.3%	222
Agriculture sector	32.712	-3.377	15.9%	396
Commercial sector	15.047	-1.633	7.2%	4,280
Street light	3.839	-0.178	1.1%	-
Total	206.308	-21.003	100	-

The country increased electricity imports by 4 percent to 4.336 TWh and decreased electricity exports by 33 percent to 6.503 TWh, the official statistics indicate.

It is not clear why the country’s actual electricity output decreased, while the nominal power generation capacity increased.

Iran increased gas deliveries to power plants by 4.7 percent to 57.74 billion cubic meters, while fuel oil and gas oil deliveries declined by 35.2 percent and 0.6 percent to 4,446 million liters and 5.732 million liters respectively.

Iranian officials also say that about 11 percent of produced power in Iran is lose in network.

Thermal power plants shared 83.27 percent of the country’s total nominal power generation capacity, while hydropower shared 15.05 percent. The rest of volume belongs to nuclear power (1.33 percent) and renewables (0.34 percent).