Iraq not to transit Iranian electricity

Trend

Baghdad says that Iraqi Kurdistan's problems should be solved before the country starts transiting Iran's electricity to Syria and Lebanon, Iran's Deputy Energy Minister Esmaeel Mahsouli said on Sunday.

Syria also says that it is facing some technical problems for importing electricity from Tehran, the Asriran News Website quoted Mahsouli as saying.

In February Iran inked an agreement with Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to increase electricity exports to Iraq by 300 megawatts to reach 1,300 megawatts and transfer at least 50 megawatts via Iraq to Syria and Lebanon.

It is while a Lebanese newspaper has quoted an official as saying that Beirut is not going to import electricity from Iran in near future.

The official said that Lebanon has not signed any agreement and there were just some verbal suggestions by Tehran for exporting electricity to Beirut.

According to Deputy Energy Minister Mohammad Behzad, Iran is currently in the 15th place in terms of the electricity generation capacity.

Behzad said in April that Iran has constructed power plants twice as many as the average number of power plants which have been constructed in the world during the past decade.

The managing director of Iran power generation transmission and distribution management company (TAVANIR), Homayoun Haeri, said on May 14 that Iran is now 92 per cent self-sufficient in producing the energy and electricity industry's needed facilities.

According to Haeri, Iran currently trades 12.3 gigawatt hours of electricity with neighboring countries.

The power generation capacity in Iran has grown by 7 percent annually during the past 10 years. The figure has averaged 3.5 percent in the world.

Iran currently trades power with Turkey, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq. In an effort to diversify its destination markets, Iran plans to export electricity to Europe and Africa.

Tehran seeks to become a major regional exporter of electricity and has ‎attracted‎more than $1.1 billion in investments for the construction of ‎three new power‎plants.

Based on the Fifth Five-Year Economic ‎Development Plan, Iran should annually add 5,000 MW to its power generation capacity.

Iran plans to boost ‎its electricity generation capacity to ‎‎reach 73GW, by the end of the Fifth Five-Year Economic ‎Development Plan (March ‎‎2016).

Do you have any feedback? Contact our journalist at [email protected]