US President Trump has again threatened to strike Iranian power plants, saying that if Iran doesn't return to the negotiating table, "next week is going to be very bad for them because next week it's the power plants' turn." According to data from the open-source intelligence tool OpenInfraMap, Iran has approximately 110 natural gas power plants, a few of which are hybrid fuel plants. The country also operates solar, hydroelectric, wind, oil, diesel, coal, geothermal, and nuclear power facilities.
By installed capacity, Iran's three largest power plants are all natural gas-powered:
1. Damavand Combined Cycle Power Plant: Located approximately 70 kilometers southeast of Tehran's city center, with an installed capacity of 2,868 MW.
2. Shahid Salimi Power Plant: Located in Mazandran Province, near the Caspian Sea, with an installed capacity of 2,215 MW.
3. Shahid Rajai Power Plant: Located approximately 110 kilometers northeast of Tehran's city center, with an installed capacity of 2,043 MW.
For reference, OpenInfraMap data shows that the largest operating natural gas power plant in the United States—the West County Energy Center in Florida—has an installed capacity of 3,750 megawatts.
Iran's electricity relies primarily on fossil fuels. According to data from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in 2023, Iran generated over 340,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity from fossil fuels and nearly 28,000 gigawatt-hours from renewable energy. The IAEA states that Iran has only one operating nuclear reactor—the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in the west—and another under construction. In 2023, Iran's nuclear power generation was 5,740 gigawatt-hours.
