Iran’s Gas-to-Power Use Rises 12.4%

Iran's power plants used 12.4% more gas in fiscal 2017 than they did the year before, or a total 69.454bn m³, according to the energy ministry’s annual statistics, released April 16. This led to a cut of 18% in the use of liquid fuels in power generation, to 8.73bn liters. Iran’s fiscal year starts on March 21.

The country’s nominal power generation capacity increased by 3.2% to 78.9 GW, while actual capacity was 60.493 GW, about 2.8% more than the previous fiscal year. About four-fifths of the new capacity was thermal power plants but Iran is planning to add 1 GW/yr renewables to the grid between 2016 and 2021, freeing up gas for more valuable export markets.

Last fiscal year, Iran generated 312 TWh electricity (8.1% growth on year), of which 7.871 TWh were exported, up 17.7% on the year before, while imports fell 7.3% to 3.919 TWh.