Estimation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Iran’s Electricity Generation Sector

Nowadays the global climate change has been a worldwide concern and the greenhouse gases emissions are considered as the primary cause of that. According to the UNCED Iran is not required to submit annual GHG inventory report. However Iran as one of the biggest producers of oil and natural gas in the world should be involved. So it is necessary to prepare such a report at least unofficially. In this paper, first the terminology and the methods to calculate GHG emissions will be explained and then GHG emissions calculation results for the Iranian power plants will be presented. The results for the Iranian power plants show that in 2005 greenhouse gas intensity for steam power plants, gas turbines and combined cycle power plants are 617, 773, and 462 gCO2eq/kWh, respectively with the overall intensity of 610 gCO2eq/kWh for all thermal power plants. This GHG intensity is directly depends on the efficiency of power plants. The estimated intensities are comparable with the equivalent data for developed countries. The average GHG intensity in electricity generation sector in Iran between 1995 and 2005 was experienced 13% reduction. However, the results demonstrate that still there are great potentials for GHG emissions reduction in Iran’s electricity generation sector.

Keywords:

Greenhouse Gas emissions , GHG , Intensity , Iran’s electricity generation sector , IPCC