NCRI Staff
NCRI – The Iranian Ministry of Energy revealed in its annual report that Iran’s nominal power generation capacity increased by 3% in the previous fiscal year to around 78.9 GW.
This report seems positive at first, but, importantly, the figures are only nominal. The country’s actual power generation capacity is less than 68.5 GW, mainly due to ageing power plants.
Indeed, in the last fiscal year, which ended on March 20, Iran only fulfilled about half of its power generation growth plan.
This means that Iran is facing the very real danger of power outages, with experts predicting that Iran needs to grow its power generation by at least 5 percent annually to avoid this.
Its renewable power projects are notably behind, accounting for less than 0.5% of Iran’s total power generation capacity.
Last year Iran only added 100MW to renewable energy, compared with the 690 MW they had planned to install.
Iran has high levels of air pollution as a result of their dependence on fossil fuels, but the mullahs aren’t doing anything to stop this.
The main problem is that infrastructure in Iran is ageing, if not obsolete, and efficiency rates are low, even among similar countries.
But why is that?
Well, simply the Iranian Regime is not investing the money in the energy infrastructure.
They could have chosen to use the money released by the 2015 nuclear deal to improve its power plants and invest in renewable. This would have made the lives of the Iranian people better, reduced pollution, and reduced Iran’s import of energy (up by 17.7% in the last fiscal year).
The Iranian Regime did not do this. Instead, they ploughed the money into costly foreign interventions, support for terrorist groups, and the creation of ballistic missiles. Missiles that they have supplied to terrorist groups (i.e. the Houthis in Yemen) in order to intervene further in a foreign conflict.
What can the West do?
The money that they are getting from trade deals following the signing of the nuclear accord is not benefiting the Iranian people. This is clear to see from these energy reports alone.
Thus, when it comes time for Donald Trump to make his final decision on the nuclear deal on May 12, it is better to reimpose sanctions on the Regime.
This will help the Iranian people in their uprising against the Regime by cutting off the mullahs’ ability to pay their suppressive security forces.
Then, the Iranian people can overthrow the mullahs, bring democracy to Iran, and make the energy sector thrive.
