In recent years, Iran has faced increasing electricity shortages during the peak of summer. This year not only is electricity supply to industries severely limited, but households also experience frequent blackouts, and offices in some provinces have been shut down.
Iran’s electricity shortage this summer is estimated to be around 14,000 megawatts, a substantial figure equivalent to twice the total electricity production of Azerbaijan, a country that exported 3 terawatt-hours of electricity (about 10 percent of its production) worth $402 million to Russia, Georgia, Iran, and Turkey last year.
In other words, even assuming neighboring countries have 14,000 megawatts of surplus electricity and the infrastructure for importing electricity is ready, Iran would need to purchase more than $8 billion worth of electricity for just the three summer months.
According to previous estimates by the Ministry of Energy and the Majlis Research Center (Parliament), Iran needed to add 5,000 megawatts (7 percent) to its electricity production annually to prevent shortages.
However, as official statistics show, this target has not been achieved in recent years.
Additionally, some of the country’s old power plants have been decommissioned. At the same time, hydroelectric power plants are not operating at full capacity due to droughts.
For example, Iran aimed to launch more than 6,000 megawatts of new power plants in 2023, but less than one-third of this goal was achieved.
The last time Iran successfully launched 5,000 megawatts of new power plants was in 2010, and since then, the target for increasing electricity production has never been met. As a result, net electricity exports (the difference between exports and imports) dropped from a positive 8 terawatt-hours in 2014 to 1 terawatt-hour in 2022.
Iranian officials say the country’s electricity trade balance has been hovering around zero since last summer.
The Ministry of Energy’s archive of statistics also indicates a steady increase in imports and a decline in electricity exports since 2020. This ministry has blocked access to monthly reports on the state of the country’s electricity since June 2023.
Other Troublesome Factors
Besides the failure to achieve electricity production growth targets, continued widespread losses also exacerbate the country’s energy crisis.
Official statistics from the Ministry of Energy and the Majlis Research Center (Parliament) show that 13 percent of Iran’s electricity production is lost in the transmission and distribution network; this significant figure is equivalent to 40 percent of the total household electricity consumption in the country.
The low efficiency of thermal power plants in Iran is another factor contributing to the worsening electricity shortage crisis.
More than a decade ago, Iran set a goal to convert gas and steam power plants into combined cycle power plants to increase efficiency from about 30-33 percent to 45 percent. However, not only was this goal not achieved, but most of the power plants launched in recent years are also inefficient steam or gas types.
On the other hand, the regime’s neglect of clean energy has also caused problems; as such, the share of solar and wind power plants in Iran’s electricity production is currently only about one percent.
This is while Iran, with 300 sunny days, could be ideal for developing solar energy.
In 2023, the Iranian government aimed to launch 2,850 megawatts of new solar and wind power plants, but only two percent of this goal was achieved.
