Iran's power sector review for 2015

Iran boosted the share on natural gas consumption in power plants to above 80 percent by delivering 46.847 billion cubic meters (bn m³) in 9 months, which indicate a 16.8% percent growth year-to-year.

Iran's fiscal year starts on March 21.

the consumed gas amount, mentioned above, indicates that above 42 percent of Iran's total produced sweet gas during spring, summer and fall (110 bn m³ ) was consumed in power sector.

During this period (March 21 to Dec 31), Iran's power sector also consumed 4.342 billion liters of diesel (- 38.4%) and 5.278 billion liters of mazut (-31.5%).

The statistics of Iran's Energy Ministry indicate that the weekly gas delivery of gas to power plants decreased from 1.4 bn m³ in spring and summer to about 0.8 bn m³ in fall, while the figure plunged to around 0.5 bn m³ in winter.

Two reasons pushes gas delivery to Iran's power plants down in cold season:

- The country's power demands soars in warm months, while in cold seasons Iran consumes less electricity.

- Iran's gas consumption in housing sectors almost increases by 400 percent in winter, compared to summer, leaving less home for gas-to-power sector. For instance, currently Iranian households consume above 500 mn m³ per day of gas, while this figure in summer was about 120 mn m³ per day.

From March 21 to December 31, Iran produced a little more than 230 billion kWh of electricity, of which 8 billion kWh was exported, while the country imported 3.275 billion kWh of electricity energy during the mentioned period.

The statistics indicate that despite falling power consumption, Iran increased power imports since winter and electricity exports decreased.

The reason may be this fact that Iran has obligation to consume less liquid fuels in power plants, but regarding soaring the gas consumption in housing sector, it seems Iran prefer to decrease exports and increase imports instead of consuming more liquid fuels in power plants.

During 9 months and 11 days of current fiscal year, Iran added 592 MW to its power production capacity, while adding 2,300 MW power generation capacity has been planned for current year.

Currently the country's power generation capacity stands at 73,744 MW. Thermal power plants share 82 percent, hydropower shares 15.2 percent, renewables 0.31 percent and nuclear power about 1.38 percent.

Coming to power plants efficiency, the combined-cycle power plants which shares 25 percent in total power generation, has about 42 percent efficiency, while this figure for the other thermal power plants stands at around 35 percent.

In total, Iran's power plants' efficiency is about 37 percent in average.

Iran added 360 MW of hydropower to its generation capacity during the current fiscal year.

Weekly periods	Production (Billion kWh)	Gas consumption (mn m³ )	Power export (Million kWh)	Power import (Million kWh)
Average weekly until Aug 8	6175	1407	208	85
Average weekly until Sep 18	6067	1296	198	79
A week to Sep 25	5697	1242	220	84
A week to Oct 2	5701	1195	204	83
A week to Oct 9	5721	1187	233	81
A week to Oct 16	5242	1114	218	80
A week to Oct 23	4903	1051	195	83
A week to Oct 30	4595	1000	165	86
A week to Nov 6	4469	804	116	83
A week to Nov 13	4389	781	142	76
A week to Nov 20	4368	815	146	63
A week to Nov 27	4403	838	169	66
A week to Dec 4	4287	828	157	85
A week to Dec 11	4439	560	246	78
A week to Dec 18	4489	487	230	75
A week to Dec 25	4542	548	247	76
A week to Dec 31	4383	515	209	108