IRNA - Iran succeeded in self-sufficiency following the victory of the Islamic Revolution in producing power plants and even some foreigners are seeking gas turbine technology realized by the efforts of Iranian industrialists and scientists, the Minister of Energy Reza Ardakanian said on Sunday.

In a meeting with officials of the city of Kashan, Ardakanian said that the capacity of the country's power plants with 36 million people was 7,000 megawatts before the victory of the revolution, now reaching 80,000 megawatts of installed capacity.

�Before the revolution, power plants throughout the country were designed and exploited by foreigners, so that if one of them was damaged, we would not be able to use its components in other power plants,� he added.

The high-ranking Iranian official affirmed, 'The country's power plants before the revolution were a showcase of the used parts and equipment of the Russian, German, French and Italian states but today self-sufficiency in the construction and equipment of power plants, in particular the technology of gas turbines, is one of the major and unique achievements of the Islamic Republic of Iran.�

Referring to the fact that today's network power capacity�s length has increased by more than 11.3 times compared to the pre-revolution period and the capacity of the electricity post is 14 times and the distribution transformers have been more than 27 times, Ardakanian continued, �The number of villages with electricity during this period were 13 times in terms of the role of electricity in development, the level of well-being have increased.�