Iran Designs AVC System for Hydroelectric Power Plants

TEHRAN – Iranian experts and engineers have indigenized the knowledge for manufacturing automatic voltage control (AVC) system, which is high-technology equipment used in hydroelectric power plants, IRNA reported.

“This is the first major power plant equipment that has been completely designed by Iranian specialists and will be used in hydroelectric power plants after final approval,” a deputy with Iran Water and Power Resources Development Company (IWPCO) said.

“Hydroelectric power plants have several major components with high technology and are produced by a limited number of countries, one of which is AVC,” Jalaledin Hojati said.

According to the official, the engineers and experts at the IWPCO have been working on the project in the past six years and managed to achieve this goal in the current year.

Hojati noted that the equipment is planned to be officially put into operation in the first half of the upcoming Iranian calendar year which begins on March 19.

The official put the costs of the production of this equipment at 30 billion rials (about $714,000) which is significantly lower than the price the country had to pay to buy the equipment.

An automatic voltage control (AVC) system maintains the voltage profile of a power system in an acceptable range and minimizes the operational cost by coordinating the regulation of controllable components.

As a subsidiary of the Energy Ministry, IWPCO was established in 1989. The main responsibility of this company is to actualize a considerable part of the hydropower potentials of the country and develop the facilities of reserving and transferring of water.