Abdulreza Sepahvand, spokesperson for the Energy Commission of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, stated in an interview with a reporter from Young Journalists Club regarding the gas imbalance in the country that due to the enemy's attack on the phases of South Pars, there is an additional imbalance of 130 million cubic meters compared to last year. This imbalance is transferred to various sectors.
Efforts to secure gas for the residential sector
Sepahvand stated that the government's utmost effort is to prevent gas outages in the residential sector. He added that negotiations are currently ongoing with Turkmenistan to import gas for the northern provinces and strengthen gas pressure in these areas. However, he noted that in the industrial sector, gas outages will be unavoidable.
Use of liquid fuel in power plants
The spokesperson for the Energy Commission also referred to the use of liquid fuel in thermal power plants and said that to regulate this situation, diesel and fuel oil are injected into the power plants instead of a portion of the required gas. He also announced multiple meetings with the presence of former oil and energy ministers and relevant deputies in the Energy Commission.
According to Sepahvand, the goal of these meetings is to ensure that power plants can continue their operations, but unfortunately, there will also be some electricity outages in this sector. He emphasized that outages due to gas imbalance will continue simultaneously in both gas and electricity sectors and will persist until the end of the year.
Gas storage and solar energy
Sepahvand further referred to the status of gas storage and stated that we do not have enough storage capacity to compensate for the gas imbalance, but fortunately, the reserves have reached their highest level in recent years, approximately three and a half billion liters. He also mentioned good progress in the field of solar energy, stating that the production of this energy has reached 6,500 megawatts and will approach 10,000 megawatts by the end of the year.
However, Sepahvand noted that the imbalance due to the war is about 15,000 megawatts, and part of it has been taken out of the circuit due to the war. He expressed hope that the electricity imbalance will decrease by the peak consumption in the summer of next year.
Possible consequences of war
In response to questions about the possibility of power plants being targeted in the event of war, Sepahvand stated that this is a separate discussion and referred to the current state of the war in Russia and Ukraine. He said that if a war occurs and the country's infrastructure is attacked, the imbalances will certainly increase, and the situation will not be normal.
In conclusion, the representative of Khorramabad and Chagni in the Parliament emphasized that if the country's infrastructure is attacked, the imbalances will increase, and it will not be easy to estimate how much the outages will be in each sector.
