Iran per capita electricity production capacity tops 1K watts: Minister

Iran’s Minister of Energy Reza Ardakanian says the country has reached an electricity production capacity of 83 million kilowatts per hour or 727 terawatt hours a year.

According to Press TV, Ardakanian said on Tuesday while opening a series of new power plants in Iran that per capita access to electricity based on generation capacity was now 1 kilowatt, or 1,000 watts, per hour.

“At the world level, that is a good indicator of welfare and public comfort and that the infrastructure needed for development and execution of projects is there,” said the minister.

The comments come as Iran keeps increasing its electricity generation capacity both through conventional gas-fired power plants and through renewable sources like solar and wind energy.

However, Iran’s actual production of electricity is currently around 43 percent of the installed capacity. Output reached an all-time high of 312.5 terawatt hours a year or 35.6 million kilowatts per hour in March 2018.

That means 429 watts per person or 3,760 kilowatt hours (kWh) each year which is above the world average of 3,000 kWh per capita.   

The rapid expansion of the electricity sector in Iran, a country which boasts of its capacity to export electricity to neighbors like Iraq, has come despite growing economic pressure piled on the country by the United States.

That has come as the government has struggled to implement costly energy development projects despite the US sanctions.

Ardakanian, a former United Nations water resources expert, supervised the opening of nearly $200 million worth of various energy projects, including power plants and water treatment facilities, in his appearance to the media on Tuesday.

ME