THERMAL POWER PLANTS GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS IN IRAN

Concerns about Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and global climate change were voiced by the scientific community as far back as the international Geophysical year in 1957 when climate change scenarios and impacts were analyzed. 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 (SPP), Gas Turbine Power Plants (GTPP) and Combined Cycle Power Plants (CCPP) are 617, 773, and 462 gCO2eq/kWh, respectively with the overall intensity (610 gCO2eq/kWh) for all thermal power plants. This GHG intensity is directly depend on the efficiency of power plants. 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 (GHG) emissions , Intensity , Energy consumption , Iran's electricity generation sector , Global climate change , Power plants