Electricity Industry Spokesperson: Iran Increases Electricity Imports from Three Neighboring Countries

A spokesman for Iran's electricity industry says that as blackouts increase, the government is considering increasing electricity imports and halting electricity exports.

Mustafa Rajabi Mashhadi stated on Sunday, June 13, that the government wants to increase electricity imports from Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Turkmenistan.

Last year, Iran more than doubled its electricity imports compared to 2019, reaching 2.7 TWh. Iran has always faced electricity shortages in the summer, but this year, the electricity shortage began even in the spring, and widespread blackouts have been reported in some cities in the country in recent weeks.

On Saturday, Abdul Reza Sheikhan, secretary of the Cement Industry Employers' Association, announced that cement factories have been notified to reduce their electricity consumption: "It has been said that they will provide 40 percent of the electricity needed by factories during this peak consumption period. They have also specified the peak time, but 40 percent is not enough for factories to operate, and production may decrease, which will cause market inflation."

The Iranian government announced on Saturday that the country's electricity consumption exceeded a record of 58,000 megawatts this year.

Official reports from the Ministry of Energy and statements by Iranian officials always refer to the country's "85,000 megawatts of electricity generation capacity," but detailed statistics from the Ministry of Energy show that the "practical capacity" of the country's power plants is only 62,000 megawatts at best. Many of Iran's power plants have been out of service for years due to wear and tear, but they are still included in the "electricity generation capacity" statistics.

On the other hand, 12,000 megawatts of the country's practical electricity production capacity is related to hydropower plants, whose production was reduced by 30 percent last year due to drought, and Iranian officials say that the continued drought has caused the country's hydropower plant production capacity to be halved this year.

Also, official statistics from the Ministry of Energy show that due to network wear and tear, more than 10 percent of the country's electricity production (about 40 terawatt hours) is wasted at the transmission and distribution stage.

Iran should have invested $2 billion in modernizing its electricity grid every year over the past decade, but this has not happened.

Also, the natural annual growth rate of the country's electricity consumption is about five percent. Last year, Iran planned to add 4,800 megawatts to the country's electricity production, but only about 1,800 megawatts were added. In 2019, only half of the country's electricity production growth targets were achieved.

Source: Iran