External Costs of Electricity Generation in Iran: Case study: SO2 and NO2 Emissions from Shahid Rajai Power Plant

Many reports that appeared during the last 20 years have shown that atmospheric pollution causes serious damage to human health and to environment. Electricity generation from fuel fossil is one of the major sources of pollution and considerable share of this damage. The price of electricity in Iran, as in many other countries also, includes only the production of private costs and ignores any other external economic effects. In this research, the external costs of SO2 and NO2 emissions have been calculated for Shahid Rajaii Power Plant. Shahid Rajaii Power Plant is located at Tehran – Gavin free way. The system of Shahid Rajaii almost depends upon fuel oil, gas oil and natural gas. It's total capacity is almost 2000 MW. The system is based on fire Power Plant which consists of 13 units. There are 4 steam turbines with 1000 MW capacity, 6 gas turbines with 640 MW and 3 steam units with 375 MW. In this paper, the external costs have been accounted for unit steam of power plant. The SO2 and NO2 emissions were compared with international standard of ambient air on four seasons, and in two conditions of Normal and Maximum load. The resulting external costs of SO2 and NO2 emissions were achieved about 444.226, 276.069 Ris/kWh.The results shows that the external costs of SO2 emission is highest due to high usage of fuel oil.