Iran to expand electricity export to neighbors

Nov. 16, 2005 (MNA)

"Connecting Iran's electricity grid to those of the republics of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey and Iraq through the Iranian provinces of Eastern Azarbaijan and Western Azarbaijan is quite plausible", said an Iranian provincial official.

"Skilled human resources, vast production of equipments used in the electricity generation industry and making use of the world's state-of-the-art technologies in the sector have created great opportunity for us to boost our electricity exports", noted head of Iran's electricity company. "Moreover, we have many proficient contractor companies specialized in developing power plant building projects whereas, our neighboring countries usually lack one of the two required resources, therefore Iran has the potentials for turning into the region's electricity exchange hub", the managing director TAVANIR (Iran's Power Generation, Distribution and Transmission Company) said. "Some of our neighbors, such as Afghanistan and Iraq and also the eastern parts of Turkey and the regions located in the west of Pakistan, are heavily in need of our surplus electricity", Persian service of ISNA news agency quoted Mohammad Ali Vahdati as saying on Friday.

In addition, he added, given the different off peak and on peak electricity times in our country and our neighboring countries, electricity exchanges are in the interests of the both sides.

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