Azerbaijan, Iran to swap electricity soon

Azerbaijan and Iran will begin swapping electricity in the near future. Iran’s Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian, addressing a meeting with a group of senior directors of the Ministry on June 28, said that necessary grounds have been prepared for electricity swap with Azerbaijan and the project should be operational this summer, IRNA reported.

He said that the power grids for exchange of energy with Azerbaijan are completed and Iran will swap as much as 600 megawatts of power with Azerbaijan.

Iran’s power infrastructure (a power transmission line and pole) for electricity export to Azerbaijan is completed, according to the minister.

Current volume of electricity trade between Tehran and Baku, which stands at 10 MW, will increase as power grids of the two countries have already been synchronized.

Electricity trade between the two neighbors will enable power exports to a third country like Russia and Georgia as well.

Experts believe that Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia will benefit from linking the electricity networks. Additionally, Azerbaijan will get dividends for transmission of electricity as a transit country by carrying out electricity export-import operations between Russia and Iran.

Earlier this year, Azerbaijani Minister of Energy Natig Aliyev said that Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia are working on the establishment of the North-South energy corridor among the three countries.

Enjoying the relevant infrastructure for electricity transmission, Azerbaijan's electricity production capacities also allow the country to be an electricity exporter.

Earlier in February 2016, a framework agreement on the sale of electric power was concluded between the two neighbors, which envisaged the construction and operation of new hydro plants (Khoda Afarin and Qiz Qalasi) and hydroelectric complexes on the Araz River.

Moreover, Azerbaijan signed a MoU on electricity swap with Iran at the end of the last year to link the two countries' power networks and swap of electricity.

Azerbaijan has a very little share in Iran's annual 10.24-billion kWh electricity energy export, according to the annual report of Iran's Energy Ministry.

The country's share from Iran's 4.1 billion KWh electricity energy import stood at 0.1 percent in last Iranian fiscal year (ended March 20).

Overall, the Islamic Republic exports over 11 GWh of electricity to regional countries per year.

Iran also eyes synchronizing its electricity grid with those of European countries

Iran plans to increase its capacity for generating electricity to 100,000 MW by 2020 from the current 74,000 MW.