Around 1926 (1305 in Persian
calendar), One of the most famous and brainy investors named Mohammad
Hossein Dilmaghani, after taking a trip to Germany, began to wonder
about installing a power plant in Urmia. Due to large amount of water
that could be found in Urmia, he brought a small hydraulic turbine along
With a German technician to Urmia. The turbine started working by force
of a watermill. After setting up the power turbine and training an
Iranian technician named Mostafa Sarafraz, the German expert went back
to his country. The 40kw hydraulic turbine was installed in a region
known as Hang Akhgar. This turbine had been using for carpentry on days
and delivering light at nights. Studying the first installed power
generators in Iranian cities, the Urmia turbine seems to be the first
hydraulic power generator across the country.
As the elders say, the power generated had been using in Urmia old town
neighborhoods like Askarkhan, Balo darvazasi, Haft Asiab ,Bazarbash,
Bozular Choghori, Jharchibash, Manare mosque, Ghapan, Jami mosque , … .
30 years after installing the first diesel power plant in Tehran in
1905, the first diesel power plant by 110kw capacity was installed in
Urmia by Hajh Ghafar and started to deliver power to customers. Adding
some generators, the capacity raised up to 1700kws.
Urmia municipality installed another 1500kw power plant in 1961 and
provided another part of the city with electricity. In the meantime
power plants were installed in other cities across the province. A 30kw
small power plant was established in Mahabad. It seems that before the
earthquake, there would be a small power plant in Salmas but the
official one mentioned in documents, returns to 1947.
So Urmia, Maku, Khoy, Salmas, Naghade, Mahabad, Miandoab and Boukan had
power plants but as the power demand was growing, they failed to cope
with the new demands. After establishing Azerbaijan regional power
company, the private sector and municipality plants were delivered to
this company.
The Azerbaijan power company started to develop new power plants and
planned new transmission and distribution networks to deliver reliable
electricity to its customers. Standard networks based on technical
principles replaced old grids.
In 1973, when the 132kv line around Urmia lake got completed, 132/20 kv
substations in Urmia, Salmas, Khoy, Mahabad, Miandoab and Naghade were
installed and went under load; so the west Azerbaijan electricity grid
was connected to the national grid. At the late 1979, Urmia gas power
plant of 2*30MW and operation capacity of 2*22 MW was established and
came into operation in 1981. This power plant has been responding to a
part of the electricity demand in the region as well as improving
voltage stability in the 132kv line. Also there is khoy combined cycle
power plant consisting two steam and gas parts, which has been operating
since 1998. This power plant, with 2 gas units of 133.4 MW and
operating capacity of 2*115 MW has entered to the network and is
utilized as BASE after the gas station has been set up. Since August
1992, the west Azerbaijan electric power distribution company (as the
first distribution utility in the country) started its activity for
power delivery in the urban and rural areas as well as operation and
maintenance of the power networks across the province.