Mehr News Agency cited Mr Hamid Chitchian energy ministry caretaker as saying that Iran plans to connect its national power grid with Russia and the Persian Gulf states.

Mr Hamid Chitchian said that “currently Iran’s national power grid is connected to Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. We plan to connect our power grids to Russia via Azerbaijan as well as linking to the Persian Gulf states via sub sea cabling.”

He added that we are planning to connect the national power grid to new countries within the next 2 years.

According to Mr Chitchian, Iran currently exports electricity to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Turkey. Iran’s electricity export faced 123% increase in the current Iranian calendar year.

Iran is among the top ten manufacturers of gas turbines with a capacity of 160 MW. Iran has acquired self sufficiency of over 80% in constructing hydraulic turbines and over 90% in producing gas turbines.

Within the next few years, Iran can join the list of countries that produce power plant technology. Iran has achieved the technical expertise to set up hydroelectric, gas and combined cycle power plants.

Iran is not only self sufficient in power plant construction but has also concluded a number of contracts on implementing projects in neighboring states. A research by the Ministry of Energy indicated that between 15,000 MW to 20,000 MW of capacity should be added in Iran’s electricity production in the next 20 years.

(Sourced from Mehr News Agency)