Iran to Set up 1,000-MW Power Plant to Export Electricity to Pakistan: Fars News Agency

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran is planning to set up a gas-based power plant with a power-generation capacity of 1,000-MW near the southeastern city of Zahedan to export electricity to Pakistan.

The project will serve as an additional source of imported power for Pakistan, which entered into an agreement with Iran in August 2008 to import 1,000-MW to address the power deficit of 4,000-MW in the country. As part of the recently proposed project, an Iranian firm will lay a transmission line between Iran and Pakistan before the power plant is commissioned.

The transmission line will cover a distance of 50-km on the Iranian side and 70-km on the Pakistani side. Delegates from Iran and Pakistan met earlier this month at Islamabad to explore opportunities for Iranian investment in Pakistan's power sector and to assess the progress of ongoing projects. At an earlier meeting in August 2008, Pakistan entered into a memorandum of understanding with Iran to import 100-MW of power for Gwadar Port and 1,000-MW of power for other regions in the country.

The two nations decided to expedite the laying of transmission lines for the requisite import of power to the Gwadar Port region. A transmission network for supplying 100-MW of power between Zahedan in southeast Iran and Quetta in southwest Pakistan is expected to be set up by the end of 2009.

Projects in Pakistan that are currently in need of investment include hydropower projects with an aggregate power generation capacity of 16,000-MW, requiring an investment of $26 billion by 2025. Coal-based power stations with an aggregate capacity of 6,000-MW that are scheduled to be commissioned by 2015 require an investment of $7 billion.

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